2 days ago
Mossman growers experiment with new industries as sugarcane future remains uncertain
For more than 125 years Mossman's cane growers have delivered a crop to the mill for crushing, but for some this year will be the last.
Since the closure last year of their local factory near Port Douglas in Queensland's far north, farmers have been experimenting with other crops, as the future of their multi-generational industry is still uncertain.
Their current harvest is trucked 100 kilometres to Mulgrave for crushing, but this subsidised short-term solution may not be sustainable long term.
The Queensland government has put together a $12.5 million package announced in the budget to support Mossman cane growers with the loss of the sugar mill.
About $6m of those funds will fully subsidise the cost of transporting this season's cane harvest from Mossman to Mulgrave Mill, which is critical for growers to make a profit.
The other $6m will be used to work towards long term solutions and projects beyond 2025.
Discussions between stakeholders are taking place about how this money is best spent.
Determined to stay on the land, growers say they have no choice but to try growing crops other than cane.
Fourth-generation Mossman farmer Don Murday is the deputy chair of Queensland Cane, Agriculture and Renewables, a group that advocates for sugar growers.
He believes making fuel from plants is the future for Mossman, and has been trialling bana grass, a crop similar to sugarcane but without the sucrose content, used to create biofuels.
He said the results had been great so far and this would most likely be his last year growing sugarcane.
"The leading projects I believe in this transition are bana grass for renewable energy," he said.
"I'm going to transition into bana grass with maybe a few other crops in the interim, but I won't be planning any more sugarcane.
"I may well be taking the sugarcane out after this harvest."
From a financial perspective, Mr Murday said using the grass to produce biomass — organic material that can be converted into a renewable energy source — was a viable option.
"With the predicted tonnages of the bana grass and the price that's being offered, we're looking at gross value of between $4,000 and $5,000 per hectare with lower growing cost than sugarcane," he said.
"So I believe growing the bana grass will compare very favourably to growing the sugarcane at the current prices."
Matthew Watson also farms in Mossman and has been trialling different crops including coffee, cocoa, corn and sorghum.
He also sees potential in bana grass, which he said was practical to grow in the district.
"Bana grass is a grass the same as cane … it grows the same, you can plant it the same, cut it the same [and] we've got all the machinery to do that," Mr Watson said.
"It seems to be growing really well in the trial patches that they've got around the district at the moment.
Growing anything without a local processor would be challenging, and Mr Murday and Mr Watson are both apprehensive about what will become of the Mossman factory.
Mr Murday said he hoped it could be turned into a biomass processing facility.
"It's probably 12 to 18 months before we're going to have any commercial quantities [of bana grass] available, and one of the processes that we're looking at is could effectively be operating within 12 months from the time they're given the go-ahead," he said.
For now, Mr Murday is only growing bana grass for propagation — experimenting with reproducing the plants — and not for commercial processing.
Mr Watson said it would be hard to see a clear future for his farm until more decisions about ownership of the mills or new processing facilities were made.
"We really just don't know, unfortunately," he said.
"The killer is the not knowing what you're doing from day to day, trying not to get stuck in the negatives."
