Tuesday 4th October – Lucas and I got an early start this morning to drive from Mackay to Townsville for a 1pm meeting with environmental scientist Jon Brodie at James Cook University. Jon is the Chief Research Scientist, Centre for Tropical Water & Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER). He has a long list of research articles […]
This article was published in the Daily Mercury yesterday. Here’s a link to it online. And here’s a second article about the “trouble at mill” published on the same day. I have to admit, for me, trying to get my head around those articles is a bit like how my 5 year old daughter Albie […]
This is a shout out to Sonia Ball from Canegrowers, who we had a fantastic meeting with a few weeks ago. A lot of the difficult thinking in my earlier blog post emerged from our discussion with Sonia, who is the Canegrowers Manager of Communications. Canegrowers is “the principal body representing the state’s sugarcane growers”, advocating […]
Over the past month while I’ve been here in Mackay I’ve met many people who are in some way connected with agriculture – soil scientists, environmental scientists, official representatives of the sugarcane industry, local food producers, Australian South Sea Islanders who are descended from the indentured canefield labourers of the last century, a local MP […]
Following our meeting with Jim Pearce MP, we’ve been thinking about what a Sugar Cane Demonstration Farm could look like. On Saturday Kim and I sat down with farmer Simon Mattsson and brainstormed a few ideas. I made the scrappy sketch pictured above while we talked. Fundamental idea 1: The Sugar Cane Demonstration Farm needs […]
On Friday Lucas and I spent the day at Simon Mattson’s farm, having a fun time printmaking with his wife Susie, son Luke and daughter Sophie while Simon was out in the paddocks working. The harvesting crew could be seen in the background, giving the fully grown sugarcane a number one clip to the ground. […]
John Sweet called up Jim Pearce, the state Labor MP for Mirani and asked for a meeting. As part of John’s vision to redesign the entire Great Barrier Reef Catchment along Keyline principles, he brings together people to catalyse that small thing which might just set something big in motion. So the fact that Kim and I are visiting Mackay was John’s occasion to “Summon […]
This is John Sweet. John’s a retired farmer, Keyline Design Consultant (and good mate of PA Yeomans), community activator and health advocate. It’s his determination which got us up to Queensland in the first place. John connects people with people. He doesn’t use computers or mobile phones but he has a stronger social network than […]
It’s busy times for artists and farmers in Mackay. With “the crush” now in full swing, harvesters are out in the fields, those cute little trains are chuffing around hauling carriages full of cane to the mills, and the mills are working 24/7 to process it all. Tis a mighty effort, and all over town […]
We roam around Mackay visiting farms and hearing about the experiments and inventions of farmers. And rumbling just below the surface is an anxiety. It’s the troubling undercurrent that got us here in the first place – the seemingly unsolvable tension of Sugar vs the Reef. Kim and I have talked back and forth about all of […]