It seems so unfair that agricultural scenarios in the 2479 area can have such vastly different outcomes. One the one hand, in this issue, we have the amazing success story of Martin and Pamela Brook’s Brookfarm at St Helena, making macadamia muesli and other products. Bought the land 20 years ago. Planted macas to keep down the weeds. Chose to value-add rather than on-sell the nuts they grew – the rest you can read about on page 4.
In roughly the same time frame, maybe a few years longer, the Byron Bay Lychee Farm invests in planting 10,000 lychee trees in Brooklet. Waits the 10 years ’til commercial maturity. Finally the trees start producing hundreds of tonnes of fruit, employing many in an area of high unemployment. But hold it! Here come the fruit bats, eating 95 per cent of the crop. Netting, which costs mega-bucks, is erected where possible. Whoops! Giant hailstorms rip through them. Insurance refuses to insure the hail-nets. Banks won’t finance the nets without insurance. What to do? Read Robin Amos’s story on p 3.
Leaving some unanswered questions: should politicians be allowed to stop our farmers protecting their crops on land designated solely for food production? Don’t they have a
‘Right to Farm’? Christobel Munson
This page: Parking in Bangalow by Judy Baker; Phone Box by Niels Arup.
Some people will just park anywhere! A young local, running late for work one Saturday morning, roared onto the railway platform but rather overshot the mark. She was hoping to get some football mates to help get it back on the level! Judy Baker