On Thursday afternoon the cars began arriving at Christine and Chris Watts’ Paynesville farm. Parking in an empty horse paddock, people lay out tents and swags, pull on work shirts and boots and introduce themselves. All of us have been drawn here by the desire to help out after the fires. Among the twelve volunteers is a young economist, a retired nurseryman, an arborist, a nurse and two organic farmers – who themselves had been burnt out three years previously.
At 6.30am the next morning, Penny, our volunteer coordinator gets us out of bed for a briefing. Under a makeshift shade beside drying racks filled with Creole, Silverskin and enormous fist-sized Russian Garlic, Penny explains that over the next three days we will be trimming and cleaning more than a ton of garlic. And so we make a start – clipping stems, talking, snipping roots, talking, rubbing off skins, talking.
CERES Fair Food has been buying Blue Sky Organics garlic since Chris and Christine’s daughter Madeline harvested their first crop as an eighteen year old ten years ago. The Watts family business grow their garlic up on their Murrindal River flats property north of Buchan Caves.
On New Years Eve the fire went through their farm. It was a week before Chris and Christine were allowed back in, escorted by police. When they got to the farm they couldn’t believe what they saw; everything had burned bar their drying garlic, a historic cottage and their tractor. With the fire continuing to flare in the surrounding bush they decided to bring the garlic back to their place near Paynesville for cleaning.
That lunchtime, our economist also our volunteer cook, has prepared an amazing spread from an abundance of food donated by farmers and organic businesses. Everyone wants to help; there’s milk from Schulz Dairy, bread from Dench and Loafer, eggs from Zanker Farm, apples from Hazeldean, veg from Peninsula Organics and Timbarra, bananas from Organic Growers Group even a delicious biriyani from Crofters restaurant. As we eat Christine Watts confesses they haven’t been cooking much lately – being adrenalised for a month has left the family in a collective brain-fog that manifests in inertia, forgetting and bursts of anger.
Early the next morning we drive up the Buchan Road to the Watts’ farm in Murrindal to collect two more trailer loads of garlic. Everything is normal until we hit Sarsfield, 19kms outside of Bairnsdale. Houses have disappeared leaving ghostly white concrete stumps. You can feel the panic from the hastily cut trees – dropped and shoved aside. We follow a truck loaded with round bales through kilometres of blackened forest. Already epicormic leaves are sprouting from eucalypt trunks but so many more seem too burned to come back. Recent rains have painted farm paddocks bright green. The contrast with the black trees gives everything an oddly benign feel.
We pass burnt houses here while others stand untouched and I recall lines from my old friend Pete Auty’s Black Saturday poem…
I don’t understand. Why this and not that?
Why burn on the ridges and not on the flat?
The little pink cottage surrounded by black,
The mud-brick houses reduced to wrack.
At the Watts’ farm the fire has burnt the bush on the ridges surrounding the property. But the grass has come back making the burnt-out hay baler sitting on its rusty wheel rims just a few meters from the garlic racks seem completely incongruous. We load the garlic stems and a kookaburra’s call builds and fills the river valley below us. Chris says when they first returned to the farm it was silent. But now the birds are coming back. Later on the way home we see a lyrebird scampering across the road and our spirits lift.
Back in Paynesville the news isn’t good; the Russian garlic we’ve begun cleaning seems to have been cracked by the fire’s heat. Christine hopes it’s just a bad batch but as the day progresses it becomes clear that 90% of the crop is affected. Most of these bulbs were to be sold as seed. Christine doesn’t know if they will be viable now. Everybody feels the strain and works on.
By dinner though we are sharing food and smiling once again. We eat and tell stories and later over ice cream, organiser Carolyn Suggate, explains that the most powerful part of the Appeal is the deepening of our relationships with each other, with our farmers, our food and our land. When I leave the following day I feel like I have been here a couple of weeks – the openness of Christine and Chris, the way shared manual work brings strangers together the opportunity to help, to learn, to appreciate and to bare witness is a privilege.
You can volunteer or donate to the Organic Farmers Bushfire Appeal here
You can find Blue Sky Organic creole garlic at Fair Food and CERES Grocery
Hold farmers in high esteem at through these tough times.
Written by Chris from CERES
Since early December, ORICoop has been championing the Organic Farmers Bushfire Appeal to directly assist organic and biodynamic farmers across Southern Australia to get through the bushfire crisis and back farming as quickly as possible.
Our original target was to raise $14,000 for one (1) semi-load of organic hay to fire-affected dairy farmers in NSW. The response was amazing with enough donations of hay, transport and cash to fund six (6) truck-loads of certified organic feed for desperate farmers! Since then bushfires have continued to burn out farms across Southern Australia and we’ve renewed our target to $50,000, and we’re getting closer daily – with over $40,000 raised so far and we are far from finished!
100% of Appeal funds will directly assist farmers to Restore, Rejuvenate and Regenerate themselves and their farmland by:-
In the coming weeks we’ll be ascertaining farmers needs across different regions and allocating Appeal funds to as many organic & biodynamic farms as we can – farmers can register for support here.
LEND A HELPING HAND
We are calling out for volunteers to support recovery efforts after the fire danger has passed. If you have the skills, time or are just keen to lend a hand then register HERE
Businesses can support the Appeal by:
Farmers can lend their support by:
About ORICoop
The Organic Farmers Bushfire Appeal is coordinated by ORICoop (Organic & Regenerative Investment Co-operative) bringing together farmers, consumers, businesses and partners to support bushfire affected farmers in this time of need. Together we are focussed on increasing the amount, diversity and productivity of organically & regeneratively managed farmland around Australia, while building a resilient Australian food and farming system that can change the way our farmers do business … for the better!
Great news!
Certified organic fodder due to arrive Christmas Eve!
When we launched the Organic Farmers Bushfire Appeal two weeks ago, our aim was to raise $14,000 to purchase and transport a B-double load (approx. 50 tonnes) of certified organic fodder to farms in need in NSW.
Since then, thanks to the momentum our supporters have created through the support of this appeal, we’ve had an amazing 120 tonnes of certified organic fodder donated by generous organic producers in Victoria – worth over $60,000! And thanks to the fodder being donated, we’ve also secured $40,000 worth of transport subsidies through the NSW Govt Rural Assistance Authority. This means for every $1 dollar donated – it has created $15 directly to these farmers!
The first of six truck loads of fodder will be delivered to organic & biodynamic farms just in time for Christmas, next Tuesday!
This will help keep stock alive and businesses afloat over the next few months at the following farms:
– Tony, an organic farmer from Comboyne
You’re helping to save these farms – thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
Your donation will go so much further than we could have anticipated when we launched this appeal. As summer rolls on, this means that we’ll be able to provide further support to more farmers affected by drought and bushfires, as needs arise.
You can share details of our Appeal with your local organic retailer or grocer with this flyer, please encourage them to support us!
Thank you!
Carolyn & the ORICoop team
A reflection from Heidi, of Marrook Farm. A Certified Biodynamic Dairy in NSW, near Taree.
Our situation currently is that we have been in drought for the last three years with increasing severity. In many previous years we have been self-sufficient in feed, making silage for winter feed. However due to the ongoing drought, we have had to bring three large loads of hay from Victoria. Currently, we are contemplating another load as feed in the pasture is minimal from the drought. We are lucky to have running water, unlike others nearby.
At present the Bulga Plateau, where we live, is surrounded by fires. Since the fire went through our neighbouring village, Bobin, just a few Friday’s ago, we had spent days in preparation, keeping the cows near the dairy and feeding more hay than we would normally have been. That Friday, the power and all phone communications went out. We have a generator at the dairy and factory so continue to milk twice a day. The phones came back on Thursday last week, which helps. We were not able to send out our truck with the week’s milk production due to the fire situation, and the danger to the drivers and trucks. Luckily, yesterday, due to the great help of friends and a vehicle going ahead to clear trees off the road we were able to send the truck out, so all our products will have a week less use by than usual. Last week I made fetta rather than yoghurt, as we had no space in the cool room to store any more and our workers have left the mountain due to the fire situation. Today I have made kefir as usual hoping to get orders out next Monday.
The closest the fire has come is one kilometre away from us two days ago. So we were on high alert, especially as we also have a 93 year old neighbour staying with us as his sons fight the fires. Thankfully there was a lot of water bombing and crews on the ground, and they held it at the road. Most days it is a waiting game and the situation changes with the wind. They are hoping to have the power restored by Thursday this week, which would astound me, as it is very rugged terrain they have to traverse, and they have lost a lot of poles. We are communicating by intermittent mobile phone mainly and a satellite NBN. UHF radius with neighbours was a great help
People must understand that farmers are feeling exhausted from the intense drought situation in NE NSW, and adding a fire to this will be financially & environmentally catastrophic for years to come.
** Support Organic & Biodynamic Farmers, donate to the Campaign HERE. Buy local. Support farmers that are resilient and surviving one of the toughest droughts in history.
After seeing parents fall ill from cancer or die, many farmers are switching to organics to protect themselves and their children.
‘Leading Change, Organically’ is our mission statement and the title of our 2017 Annual Report – but we can only achieve it together with people like you.
In the report, you’ll find our highlights from 2017, including:
You can download it here.