BRAZIL may be a long way from northern Australia, but as the WA 2016 Rural Woman of the Year Kalyn Fletcher found out, it could hold the answers to the State’s tropical agriculture challenges.
It has been a big year for Ms Fletcher, who returned from her three-week study tour to Brazil in February, after winning the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation award this time last year.
The Kununurra seed producer used her $10,000 bursary to visit the regions of Caatinga and Cerrado, and explore ways to develop tropical agriculture in northern Australia.
The two regions are of a similar latitude to Kununurra, with similar temperature ranges, altitude and rainfall patterns.
Ms Fletcher travelled 3000 kilometres by road during her trip, visiting various farming enterprises and discovering the well-developed tropical agricultural industry in the area.
The regions presented a broad range of established agricultural systems, including mainstays soybean and corn, along with tobacco, potato, carrot, onion, coffee, paw paw, dairy and beef.
Ms Fletcher said she was surprised at how well the Brazilians had utilised their soils.
“In Australia we’ve tended to look for fertile soil types, and over there they were looking for basically really high, well-drained soils, so really sandy soils,” she said.
“I had always thought there’s only so many sorts of watermelons you could grow on sand, and I thought you could only really grow intensive horticulture on it, but they’re growing everything you can think of.”
Ms Fletcher said these small communities had grown exponentially in the past decade thanks to development in the local agricultural industry.
“There was one town that had 10,000 people 10 years ago and now its 100,000 people, just purely on the back of agriculture.
“It was a new region that opened up, so they have new farms there but then on the back of that now they have two chicken abattoirs, numerous chicken farms, feedlots, grain processors and 10 tractor dealerships in that one little town.
“Kununurra is not quite 10,000 people, but could you imagine it being a 100,000 people in 10 years?
“It was just amazing the growth that agriculture could bring.”
Ms Fletcher said the Brazilian government’s investment in agriculture had brought about massive growth within the industry, a move the Australian government could learn from.
The investment had led to the creation of new varieties of soybean that were well-suited to tropical environments, and were thriving in the region.
“They invested millions into tropical soybean varieties and that’s basically revolutionised tropical agriculture in Brazil.
“We don’t have those genetics here in Australia, and you’re not going to be able to develop tropical agriculture with the same varieties and techniques that we’re using in the southern agricultural regions of Australia.”
Now that Ms Fletcher is back in Kununurra, she hopes to emulate her Brazilian counterparts and explore crop genetics to introduce more suitable varieties to northern WA.
Her study trip has also prompted further investigation into improvements in wet-season cropping in the Kimberley, and further exploration into different irrigation techniques.
Ms Fletcher said being WA’s 2016 Rural Woman of the Year was a rewarding experience that had opened doors to new opportunities.
“You tend to sit in a very isolated region, in a very isolated town and so it’s very easy just to put your head down and bum up and not come up and take a breath and see what’s around you and take time to network, meet people and share your stories.
“It has been really eye-opening for me, it’s been good for my individual personal development.”
Ms Fletcher presented a summary of her research trip at the Rural Women’s Awards last week.
She said the award was a great platform for which women from remote and regional Australia could be recognised for their contributions to their communities and industries.
“Agricultural industries and remote communities would not be where they are now, or develop further without women.
“In the north and in the really remote parts there’s not men and women in agriculture, there’s people in agriculture.
“I think that stems from when people moved up here and initially it was so challenging you couldn’t do it on your own, and so you had really strong pioneering husband and wife teams.
“It’s how people survived and I think I’m very blessed to come from a region where there is no stigma of men and women in agriculture, we have people in agriculture.”
