Burketown producers had diversified their commercial beef operation and begun harvesting the first sorghum crop at Floraville Station.
A beef breeding operation, producers Ernie and Kylie Camp run an average head of 8500 crossbred cattle across their 94,000 hectare property.
The family expanded into cropping and planted 2500 hectares of sorghum in February this year.
The harvest process began earlier in August with the first 70-tonne truckload delivered to Townsville for processing.
Mr Camp said he saw the opportunity to diversify into cropping after the 2019 flooding event, which generated farm share interest in the north west region from southern counterparts.
"I've seen the opportunity after the disastrous flooding event in 2019, where a property around Julia Creek lost a lot of cattle, and through share farming put a crop in and got record prices and record yields," he said.
"It can happen.
"I don't want my community to die and one of the ways to turn it around is to bring agriculture and the economy of scale to attract people to our region."
Mr Camp said he utilised a share farmer agreement from central New South Wales to plant the sorghum crop.
"It is usually based on a percentage with the landholder and that percentage varies on the risk," he said.
"You share both the costs and losses, but you also share the profits when you're able to do that.
"They've got quite a big investment in machinery and if they can come to these regional areas and get more usage out of the machinery, it is certainly worth their interest to do that."
Mr Camp said it was also imperative to explore ways to expand, diversify and value-add to the agricultural industry as foot and mouth (FMD) and lumpy skin (LSD) disease threatened the beef industry.
"History has shown us repeatedly that no good comes from putting all the eggs in one basket," he said.
"Should FMD or LSD reach this country, we don't bring the industry and the communities and businesses that support them to their knees."
Harvesting began earlier this month and Mr Camp said the delivered crop thus far had received a top grade SOR1 rating.
"The overall tonnage is still to be confirmed, but it'd be somewhere north of 1000 tonnes, which is not too bad for a trial," he said.
"We've had some trouble with birds taking a fair bit of seed, but yet again, we've been able to produce a crop that has a first grade rating at Townsville.
"It's been a steep learning curve because the lack of resilient infrastructure doesn't allow you the instant access that you get in a more settled area.
"You've got to have your spare parts, your seeds, your fuel and then wait for the rain because we're talking about dryland at the moment.
"And then you make hay when the sun shines I suppose."
Mr Camp said he was confident the in local region's ability to produce favourable crops in the future.
"We certainly do believe there is a future in it," he said.
"You have got to take an opportunity when it happens.
"Even if the grain had failed, it's proven itself by looking at the soil conditions - it's retained moisture and there is no cracking.
"If we get a normal wet season, it'll be ready to plant again next year.
"We can at least subscribe to insurance and our insurance in the north is to diversify.
"The more we have the cards spread across the table, the more capable our communities are to survive those downturns."
Member for Traeger and Katter's Australian Party Leader Robbie Katter visited Mr Camp on his property before harvest began and said it was imperative that both governments supported and facilitated diversification efforts in the agricultural industry to soften the blow from biosecurity breaches.
"We've been calling for urgent funding committed for a vaccination, containment and expanded surveillance programs to protect against FMD and LSD, but we need to be even smarter and more proactive in supporting our producers to adapt and survive," he said.
"This kind of farming requires an extra ten times the workforce to keep the property running, meaning bringing in more families with more job opportunities, and returning more profit to the community."
Zoe Thomas
Northern based journalist at North Queensland Register and Queensland Country Life.
Northern based journalist at North Queensland Register and Queensland Country Life.
