ONE of Australia’s largest banana growers has purchased a leading native nursery and tissue culture laboratory in far north Queensland.
Howe Farming Enterprises is one of the industry’s top five largest growers, an operation built up over three generations which has amassed more than 607 hectares of bananas across several farms at Walkamin and Mareeba on the Atherton Tablelands, along with coffee, avocado, sugar cane and blueberry crops.
It recently finalised the purchase of a new business – Yuruga Nursery, Australia’s leading native plant nursery, and its sister company, Clonal Solutions, a tissue culture laboratory at the forefront of the mass production of new clonal varieties of forestry and agricultural crops.
The businesses, which adjoin Howe Farming’s main farm at Walkamin, were established by Peter and the late Ann Radke, regarded as leaders in the native plant industry. They were forced into liquidation late last year. The purchase brings Howe Farming’s total staff to 500 plus – making it the largest private employer in the region.
Howe Farming general manager Kim Mastin said the purchase was primarily made to keep the businesses and existing workforce employed, with the laboratory earmarked to assist the company with bio-security measures in wake of Panama disease outbreaks in the banana industry.
She said the new businesses were different to Howe Farming’s core operations of growing and marketing commodities but presented an opportunity to diversify. “It gave us an opportunity to keep a business going and keep people employed in the local area,” Ms Mastin said. “We are learning something completely different.
“With the detection of Panama disease, the emphasis is on clean, new banana plants and one of the ways this is achieved is tissue culture rather than using bits of plants. Bio-security is a huge focus of our business.
“We have spent $500,000 on bio-security to date including roads, drainage and other types of infrastructure.
“We are investing heavily in securing our farms as we have 500 mouths to feed not to mention the flow on effects economically across the region.”
The laboratory has the capacity to grow out 500,000 banana plants per year, with plants grown from tissue culture disease free and boasting uniformed characteristics.
The iconic nursery reopened this week. The Radkes established it more than 30 years ago, introducing about 1800 species of native plants to Australian horticulture in that time.
“There’s a lot of native plants available here that you can’t get anywhere else,” Ms Mastin said.
“There’s a great deal of history with the Radkes and Howe Farming is pleased to be able to keep the business going.”