If you’ve eaten a Cavendish banana, chances are you’ve eaten one from Mackay Estates at Tully.
The company begun 70 years ago by Stanley Mackay and continued today by his grandsons is Australia’s largest banana growing operation.
It’s not even four years since cyclone Yasi completely wiped out the 1.6 million trees on their Bolinda farm and yet Cameron Mackay said last year they packed three million boxes of Cavendish bananas for the Australian market.
Just kilometres away from the site of Queensland’s first infestation of the soil-borne Panama tropical race 4 disease, they are as productive as ever, thanks to strict quarantine protocols and diversification options.
Everyone visiting the five Tully properties is stopped at the gate to have their vehicle washed down and to swap their shoes for white gumboots.
This includes the 500 people employed by Mackays.
The company is protecting its future with expansions to Lakelands, four hours north of Tully, and is planning another farm at Bundaberg.
As well as bananas, they are the largest supplier of sugarcane to the Tully mill, have red flesh papaya and cacao crops, and run between 800 and 1000 Brahman cross cattle.
“We think we’ve got a bit to be proud of,” Cameron said. “We were the first farm in Australia to reach ISO 14000 environmental management standards, and we’re part of the Best Management Practice group as well.”
The vertically integrated business produces 300 tonnes of bananas per hectare and either feeds its waste to its cattle or puts it back on the paddocks.
“The cattle just love it,” Cameron said. “As soon as they’re fed bananas they don’t want anything else.”
Generally putting on 0.9kg a day in the paddock, this rises to 1.4kg a day with supplementary feeding.
Growing bananas is a year-round job rather than a seasonal one and the processing and packing sheds make for a busy workplace.
Their product has been going directly to Coles since 2008, another means of stabilising their business, Cameron said.
