May 23 - visit to largest Medjool plantation & presentation to BVMDGA

We started the day with Gus who is the region's largest grower with more than 3000 acres of Medjool. The size and scale of this operation is incredible, providing employment for around 150 staff all year round and an additional fleet of seasonal workers. (This photo: Gus, Dave & Anita)


This photo shows Gus's team who manufacture date bags used to cover the bunches.













Gus showed us his irrigation system and provided good advice on irrigation and infrastructure.

We drove around and looked at a number of his date gardens at different stages of maturity. There were date palms growing as far as the eye could see, from horizon to horizon!

We appreciate very much the time we spent with Gus and the invaluable insight he provided into how his family business has grown to such a large scale - and his confidence and vision for the future of the date industry. Gus has helped us to think bigger!

I had been invited by the Bard Valley Medjool Date Growers Association to provide a presentation to their group and other interested parties, on the Australian date industry. I came prepared with a powerpoint presentation which covered aspects of our own Gurra Downs date business, projects we're involved in, the history of dates in Australia and the current status and future vision for industry growth. I presented at the Arizona University and received favourable comments from attendees over a shared lunch afterwards.

May 22 - meeting with date growers

Historically dates have been grown on the valley floor with little altitude above the height of the Colorado River, and indeed sea level. In some date gardens the water table is as close as one metre down. These areas are loamy clay and flood irrigated. In recent decades date production has expanded onto the mesa which is higher ground surrounding the valley, where land is more available and initially cheaper to purchase.

This morning Dave Mansheim, President of the Bard Valley Medjool Date Growers Association took us to the plantation he manages on the mesa. These dates grow on sandier soils which are free draining and typically irrigated via a drip system. We were interested in seeing how this plantation was established where Dave has levelled land and planted date palms on terraces which have superb views over the valley floor. This concept of landscape terracing lends very nicely to real estate opportunities which may arise should urbanization continue.

Dave's management method for dealing with the large volume of date palm prunings was also of great interest - disposing of fronds on-site, leaving in alternate rows. Later a flail shredder passes over the fronds chopping into pieces. This residue sits ontop of the ground as mulch eventually breaking down.





Dave Mansheim with Dave & Anita

We met with Steve and Ron who also showed us their date gardens and had an opportunity to look at offshoot removal and methods used. Of particular interest was the sledgehammer chisel attached to a bobcat (skidsteer), used instead of the traditional handheld chisel and hammer. This method ensures workmen can work all day on removal instead of being worn out from swinging a sledgehammer - and we may well  adopt for our own offshoot removal.

Went to Ron's place and looked at various tools and machinery used in date production including construction of cages for high picking, flail shredder (this photo), hydraulic frond pruners, pollen blowers, an assortment of bunch bags and old and new fruit trays. (This photo: Ron & Dave inspecting the flail shredder)

We spent time with Glen V who swung by and showed us the original 6 Medjool which came to Yuma in approx 1944. A source of inspiration for us - as we see today, there are thousands of acres of Medjool palms descended from these original 6 which were the nucleous of the now very large Medjool industry in Bard/Yuma. It gives us hope that the date palms we have introduced to Australia may someday result in the growth of a commercial industry such as we see here in the USA. (This photo: Glen with Jonte & Dave)

Had a look at plantations Glen is involved in which included mature fruiting palms down to recently established plantations.We looked at freshly planted offshoots and the technique Glen uses to establish new gardens.

Saw teams of workers completing fruit thinning. We also looked at some Barhee date palms to see their fruit set. Glen was kind enough to show us a tree shaking machine he uses to shake ripened dates from bunches with minimum manual picking; a pollen extracting machine and blowers used to pollinate date palms at flowering. Dinner at Burgers & Beer with  members and their wives from the Date Growers Association.

May 21 - visiting date gardens

Well we’re in the heat of the desert at Yuma with a top temp today of 42C. Today was the first of our programmed itinerary where we were hosted by Nels, Martha and Jason Rogers of Martha’s Date Garden. These people grow premium Medjool dates. We had a tour of their plantation, nursery and packing house and learned a lot. This time of the year they are thinning fruit, tying down bunches and applying separating rings.

Bunch thinning

We very much appreciated the warm hospitality of Nels, Martha and Jason and were in awe of what they have achieved with their plantation and opening their property to the public for education and date sales in the cooler months.









Discussing the finer points of bunch covers with Glenn Wright at the University of Arizona.

 

May 19 - Phoenix to Yuma

Before we left Phoenix we visited a date retail shop and had one of those famous date shakes - and gorged ourselves on chocolate coated dates. Part of the reason we wanted to see the US date industry is that we're aware they have many roadside date retail shops which we're really keen to have a look at. We've been considering for a long time now the prospects of opening such a shop on our home property so we very much want to see how these longstanding US businesses operate.

Left Phoenix driving towards Yuma, a 3 hour drive. A challenge getting used to driving on the opposite side of the road!!

On the way we stopped at Dateland, a very busy retail outlet - more date shakes and date icecream!! A big souveneir shop on the main road with lots of visitors.

Reached our hotel in Yuma late afternoon. Yuma has a population of around 90,000 which doubles in winter. It is almost summer and already 40 C and hot so we have some acclimatizing to do!

May 18 - Adelaide/Sydney/LA/Phoenix

Anita and Jonte are accompanying me for the first 3 1/2 weeks - the USA/Mexico leg. We left Adelaide on May 18 flying to Los Angeles via Sydney, and onto Phoenix, Arizona. Hired a Ford Escape and overnighted in Phoenix. Flying over so much desert and so many mountains, we found Phoenix to be surprisingly large with a population of approx 4.2 million! (making it the 14th largest metro area in the US and being home to more than 2/3rds of Arizona's population).............after all that flying and sitting in airports - still May 18!!

Home and moving onto private study tour

It was good to get home to Gurra Downs and I managed to get through and catch up on all the admin and plantation work. We're coming into our Autumn/Winter period so grapes and pomegranates are going dormant and now only needing to be pruned by our mechanical pruning contractor.

There are a few late ripening dates which Shaun, Jesse and Kelsey will take care of so now seems like a good opportunity to head off on the last remaining stage of my Nuffield Farming Scholarship. This is the private study component where I'll be looking specifically at date production so we can improve our management skills and adopt new technologies. This study tour will be a further 10 weeks of travel and the countries I've elected to visit for specific reasons are: USA, Mexico, France, UK, Spain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, India, UAE and Indonesia.

Thoughts on my Brazil experience

I found Brazil fascinating. I was captivated by its small rural townships and the idyllic small farm models which easily support 3 or 4 happy families. Brazil's population is 191 million which matches the 5th largest population with the 5th largest country. Make no mistake, Brazil has a high rate of poverty. My observations were that the low class housing was more obvious on the fringes of the super cities and very large towns. I was informed there is no government funded unemployment program so its a work or starve culture. The average income per capita is $8000US. This creates a workforce which is willing to undertake any task. In an agricultural context this simply means cheap labour is always available even for the most mundane duties - resulting in a relatively low cost production system. Machinery and mechanization are being readily adopted and this, plus foreign investment, seems to be upsizing the farming scale.

I can only be in awe of Brazil's natural resources and scope for increasing their agricultural capabilities. They are already giants in terms of their contribution to world agricultural production. To reflect on this, Brazil is the largest exporter of beef cattle, sugar, coffee and orange juice. They are 2nd with soya bean, ethanol, tobacco. 3rd with chicken meat and the 4th largest global corn exporter. Brazil has just surpassed the UK to be the 6th largest economy and looks like rising further. This is of course due in part to other competing countries backsliding as a result of the global financial crisis.

Thanks to my Nuffield Global Focus Program (GFP), I have had the opportunity to travel to many countries to review their economic, social and cultural dynamics surrounding agricultural production. I discovered there has been a recurring theme throughout these countries that keeps being raised - that world population will increase to 9 billion people by 2050! how will we feed these people?
 
I'm pleased I fluked finishing my GFP in Brazil for now I know where the solution to this challenge is going to come from. The solution is Brazil, Brazil, Brazil!!! While I am convinced there is still room to increase productivity from existing traditional global farming countries, the future capacity to increase agricultural production within Brazil is enormous.
 
To reflect on some of the quotes we learned from our Brazilian visit: they are only utilizing about 9% of the land mass that is being well managed. The remainder is largely unimproved, cleared pastures with low cattle stocking rates. Enormous change is now underway in Brazil - largely driven in partnership with foreign companies (dairy & sugar cane are really moving). Unimproved land is being converted to high production systems. The climate and rainfall allows for double cropping and a cheap workforce ensures world competitive pricing. An example of this is when I moved to the Riverland in 1988 there was a large citrus juice industry. Since the Free Trade Agreement allowed Brazilian orange juice concentrate into Australia, the local citrus juicing industry has largely disappeared. Now I have a clearer understanding of why!! I thought it was because of the cheap labour inputs of Brazil that made us non-competitive. This is of course true but now I have discovered that Brazil also has a huge advantage in being able to grow juicing citrus on rainfall without needing to irrigate. To emphasize this advantage, the Riverland needs to own/lease large water entitlements and pay an additional significant charge for pumping costs to deliver this irrigation water. The wide, wild rivers in Brazil deliver enormous volumes of water. Irrigation is now becoming more and more popular particularly amongst dairy/beef producers but also cropping and vegetable growing. Only last year another 160,000 ha of unimproved grazing land was converted to high production irrigated land. In total Brazil has 4.5 million irrigated hectares. A water/river sustainability report we heard, targets a possible 30 million hectares of irrigation. This represents an increase in irrigation development of 130,000ha per year for the next 200 years - HUGE!!
 
We also heard that Brazil is capable of tripling its beef exports very quickly if necessary but is happy to maintain current levels so as not to create over supply and lower prices. Brazil is also having mass expansion in sugar cane. With 455 ethanol producing plants and already being the 2nd largest exporter of ethanol, I suspect Brazil will also deliver renewable energy for global consumption. So from now on whenever I hear the question "how are we going to feed 9 billion people by 2050" I will answer by directing that person to study what is happening in Brazil and their capability.

For more information on this, you may like to look at the following 5 minute youtube clip:
BRAZIL: A Hungry Plant and Brazilian Agriculture - BASFAGRO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhiEJOC_-kc

In general the Brazilian people were very friendly to us. Communication was mostly difficult. My Portugese is non-existent and not many Brazilian's speak English. The majority of the population are Catholic. Prices for hotels are reasonable - possibly 2/3 of what we would pay for good quality. Food and beverages are cheap. We ate mostly at restaurants and food was really good. I will take away some fantastic memories of Brazil. Although I have little interest in Soccer, I will be an interested onlooker when Brazil host the World Cup in 2014!