SPEAKER_00 0:58

Good morning and welcome to Wet on the Reef. I'm your host, diver and marine conservationist, Tanya Murphy. And joining me as always is Cans Aquarium's marine educator and fish whisperer, Brett Goodbair.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Good morning, Tanya Geez. We've got a good show today, don't we?

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yes, we're in a good mood. We are just had a tasty snack.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

We did.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

So today we're talking about a sweet and tasty solution to reducing water pollution on the Great Barrier Reef.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

So Brett, for those listening who can't see us in the studio right now, what exactly are you holding?

SPEAKER_01 1:29

I'm holding a dozen beautiful yellow juicy bananas. But they're a little bit different, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yes, it is a tasty bunch of bananas, but they've got red wax tips.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

They do, they have the little wax tips on the bottom, the red ones that people may have seen in the shop. So you're going to learn all about how special these bananas are.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

A lot of people might not know there's a connection between these red-tipped bananas and protecting the environment and the Great Barrier Reef. So I'm sure everyone's wondering, what on earth do bananas have to do with protecting the Great Barrier Reef? Well, as it turns out, quite a lot. It all starts on the banana farm. That's a lot of banana. That's about 50 tons of 100. More than 25 years ago, Frank and Diet data from the banana tip. And it's made friends with their local insect population. Some people thought that were crazy, but now consumers across Australia and internationally are going bananas for their red tips fruit. We're really excited to have them joining us today. Good morning, Frank and Diane. Welcome to Word on the Reef.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Good morning. Good morning to both of you. This is gonna this is so cool. We've been so excited about this one.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yes, it's great to have you on the show. So I understand that back in the 90s you used to grow your bananas using pesticides and fertilizers, just like most other farms in the district. What was it that inspired you to want to make a change?

SPEAKER_04 3:36

It probably goes back one step further than the bananas, Tanya. Frank was a third generation cane farmer, and we were at a stage where our CCS was dropping, our tonnage was dropping, and the general consensus for the solution to this was to buy more land. And at the time the banana industry was migrating to this area, obviously because it's the perfect climate for bananas from New South Wales, and it was a a growing industry 35 years ago, and we decided that we would grow bananas, but Frank said, I'm not doing what I was doing with the cane crop, I'm gonna do this differently, and for about three or four years looked at lots of different farming systems, and none of them met with the philosophy that he was thinking. And this was driven also from the fact that he was an avid diver in his early twenties and saw the vibrance of interrelationships between species on the reef and started relating that to the farm, thinking that it's no different, right? That you need to have a complex ecosystem if you want to have good soil health. So that's kind of how it all started.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Well, that's put a big smile on our face. That connection between the reef and bananas and farming. Yeah, isn't it? It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

The reef is such an inspiration.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

He is.

SPEAKER_04 4:54

Then it was a matter of if I'm substituting a synthetic product with an organic product and it's performing the same function, then what is the purpose? So if I'm still going to wipe out all my insect population and I'm adding all of these other organic solutions to my soil, but I still don't have soil that's alive with a complete complex ecosystem happening in it, then I need to look at this very, very differently. So the first thing was we needed to remove insecticides or anything that killed living organisms on the soil. He then looked at the reduction of fertilizer, be it synthetic or organic. So if you use it past a certain limit, you're interfering with the balance of your uh soil structure. And it was about finding where that happy medium was that you could use a product without impacting upon that change and not changing what nature wanted you to do on that land. So we do use synthetic products, but we're currently using about sixty to seventy percent less than the industry environmental best practice. You're gonna say, Well, how can you grow a crop like that? It's like anything with change. If you've destroyed your soil and you have no soil health, it is going to take time for that to come back. But can I just give an analogy of Panama, the disease that this industry's facing at the moment, and has wiped out many, many banana crops across the world in different countries, and it's caused from destroying your soil health. On our farm, what we've brought back over twenty years is the natural antibodies in that soil. So if we do get Panama, it'll be there, but we'll have the good pathogens or fungicide to be able to combat and keep it in check.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

You'll have all your little insect workers ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

If you've encouraged the good fungus to grow, I don't know that much about fungus, but does that sort of take up the space so the Panama fungus doesn't have anywhere to live, sort of can't really invade the area because there's so many microorganisms already there. Yes, yeah, you've understood it. No farming background here.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

We are so far from knowing about fungi, it's ridiculous. But we we might have to do a whole show on fungi. I think you're a pretty fungi, bro. I'm a pretty fungi. I knew I was coming. Frank, I was reading up on your story before you came on air, and it's just so commendable what you've done. You've just gone against just ticking those boxes the government want you to tick, and you've gone, we need to bring the critters back. Let's go back. If anyone knows how to look after soil, it's a critters, right?

SPEAKER_05 7:25

Yes, absolutely. It's what I can say is you really need to connect with nature.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 7:30

It's a big word, that connecting with nature, you have to. You have to look at what is actually happening and everything that we've been given is all there. It's just been able to recognize it and its functions and work with it, not against it. I think this is fundamental for farming uh in the future. Otherwise we'd be continually destroying our ecosystems and our soil, and that that's not what where we want to go, you know?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, this is really special as you know, I work at the aquarium and our whole idea of the aquarium is to run from the Gulf of Savannah to the reef and connecting that inland to the reef and everything that affects it in between, like pesticides and nastiness and everything. We don't want that on the reef. So this just blew my mind. This is gonna be part of my shows at work. I'm not gonna stop talking about it. I'm gonna take these bananas with me to work and give them out. I'm so impressed with this, dude. You've no idea. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah, yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_05 8:23

Thank you guys.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 8:24

It's a big message that we've been trying to deliver out there. And I think you know, the bananas with the red tip was the way that we could get that message out there because everybody's gonna ask, what's that? Why? And engaging Yeah, so it's it's about engaging everybody, it's getting that story out there, and I think it's important.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah, and I really loved the fact that you're a diver and that you notice the symbiotic relationships on the reef. At the aquarium, Brett would be teaching people about how the clownfish lives together with the anemone and they help each other out. Yeah, yeah. Or how the cleaner rasses.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

The cleaner's owning the car wash and the yeah, the relationships between the animals. It's just it's incredible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:06

We don't exist on our own. Everything, when you have a look at nature, there's a so many synergies out there, whether it's a grass or it's a weed and and uh the insects, they all synergize with one another to make that complex, healthy ecosystem. And the reef is exactly the same. What I noticed in the reef was exactly that. You know, when the crown of thorns came in and I've seen parts of the reef being damaged, the whole ecosystem changed. Yeah, you know. Once where I would see certain species of fish were no longer there, they've disappeared, and there were other types, and all changed. It was very noticeable the change. It teaches uh, well, it taught me, it was a light bulb moment for me to say, well, if you want a good healthy system, then you need all the components there, you know, you need a whole healthy system there. So any interference that we have, we create problems.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Yeah, that's a great analogy. So a lot of scientists think that we've removed too many of the crown of thorns starfish's predators. And so without the predator animals to eat the crown of thorn starfish, its population has exploded and now it's turned into a pest that's eating the reef. And yeah, you're right, it's exactly the same with insects on land. Yeah, but if we remove too many of the predatory insects, then the bad insects could become pests and get out of control. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:26

Correct. And you know, the whole system, nature's trying to always keep that balance, and it knows best how to create that balance in in the ecosystem. And if we're continually interfering with that, it eventually uh creates bigger problems, I suppose. To always keep counteractoring it. So like I said, you know, you you really need to work with nature, not against it. You know, the solution doesn't come for right on the land in a 20-litre drum of whatever product, you know?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, we've covered this.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Yeah, we had a a fish vet uh on the show a couple of weeks ago, Professor Matt Landis, and he had investigated some of the impacts of farming pesticides on fish and things. So any of our listeners who didn't catch up on that episode yet, you can find our previous episode at wordonthheef.com. That's a really interesting one as well. And that's why it's perfect timing. You know, we talked about some of the impacts that things like pesticides can have on aquatic animals. And now we could talk about, well, what's the solution? And there's people out there that are already uh leading the way. And the farming industry in Queensland as a whole have recently had some more regulations placed on them as to farming practices to try and improve water quality on the Great Barrier Reef. So I understand that most farmers are taking steps in the right direction, but I think the red-tipp bananas are the ones that are sort of gone above and beyond and done even more than what the regulations require. So it's really exciting.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

We should organise a big promo dive. I'll be you know I mean serious, right? I'm gonna see this in my head. We should do a big promo dive out on the reef where us divers take a bunch of these bananas down and show it to the coral and go, look, we're working together, mate. This is where it all started. We'll just take a bunch of these to Norman Reef and we'll sit on the bottom and show it at Nemo and connect the two and go, look, you buy these, you're helping him.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

To be clear, no uh sponsorships have been received. We're just we're just panning. We're just gonna go. Frank and Diane, once you came up with this inspiration that you wanted to cut down on chemicals and let insects return to your farm, how long did it take to transition to the new method working and to start seeing results? I bet it was a big risk and you might not have known whether it was going to work out or whether you were just going to have a plague of insects destroy your entire crop. That must have been a bit scary.

SPEAKER_04 12:50

Actually, Frank had started doing this before he actually told me what he was doing. Good move, mate.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Good move. Ask forgiveness, not permission. That's it.

SPEAKER_04 12:59

For about two years, and then he came in one day and said, I think I can do this commercially. And for about another year, it was like, How do I identify my bananas? Because it's no sense in just putting them on the shelf with other bananas.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

No point.

SPEAKER_04 13:15

And yes, not differentiating them. And some of the ideas that he was coming up with were like outlandish. And then I came home one day and he had bananas dipped in blue and green paint sitting on the kitchen bench. And I'll be honest, my exact words to him were you're crazy, nobody is gonna buy that.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

A blue banana. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:36

I'm a huge believer in you don't know what you don't know, and you've got nothing to lose sometimes when you're sort of pushed to the wall, and we're in the situation that we were in with the farm, and we had to make change, and we knew that changing to systems like Rainforest Alliance or Organics wasn't the answer to the problem. So we just tried it. It took a good two-year transition where you will have crop loss because common sense tells you that if you've got no health on your farm, it's going to take time. And let me tell you that that change never stops. We saw some of the biggest benefits come 15 to 20 years later, but the the pressure points were the first two years, and once you get past that, you're okay financially. And I think for most people today, what we're seeing ourselves in industry is a lot of people are wanting to make that change, but they're too afraid because there's so much pressure on them with margin, they can't afford to have that two-year period for transition.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Yeah, that's that's right.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

That's where government should be focusing and not paying lip service to things that don't create real change and get real outcomes. And that's the area that we're constantly talking to NGOs and other people that understand what we're doing and what has to happen. The direction has to be focused on outcome-based and real change. And after that first year of us being in the marketplace, the first thing we had to do was change the way we were managing as a business because all of agriculture gets sent to the market and the farmer gets paid back, whatever is left after, everything else gets paid. You're at the bottom of the food chain, and on most of the time you're not receiving a price that covers your cost of production. And after six months I said to Frank, if this is going to work, we just need to say this is the price that we need to farm this way, and just order what you can sell at that price. And that's what we did. That was the models that we did. It was about getting a price that covered the cost of farming sustainably.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Like the pioneers of it, aren't you?

SPEAKER_04 15:39

It's still not the way that business is done today. Nothing has changed. I mean, we sit out there on our own, and because of that, I feel that we're still right at the front of the battle because everybody in the supply chain gets paid for their product, regardless of who it is, whether it be cartons, freight, the agent who ripens your fruit, they all cover their cost. And the farmer gets paid back what's left over. And to me, it's just injust and almost to the point where ACCC should be looking at. You know, you can't stockpile this product, it's fresh. So it's not like it's a can of baked beans that you can say, well, you know, if you're not going to cover my cost abduction, I'm just gonna leave this product sit on the shelf for the next six months until I can get the price. You have to sell. You've got some fruit it may be three to five days, others up to four weeks. It has to be sold. So, you know, you're at the mercy of the marketplace. How can you think about the environment when you've got the bank and your creditors looking to be paid, which used to be 30 days, now 21 days, 14 days. Since COVID, all of those pay by dates have been just brought back. I mean, at the moment we're paying almost 50%, 47% fuel levy. That's like half of your freight cost again. But it's not recognised in the price that you sell for. It is really hurting farmers across Australia.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:01

People have big decisions to make if this government does not start looking at the real cause.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yeah, absolutely. The well-being of farmers, the well-being of the reef. Imagine if they were all intertwined and we need to look after the whole ecosystem. There's that metaphor again, which we're part of. And I think you're right, most people do want to help protect the reef, but in these difficult financial circumstances, they need help to do that. Like you said, there might be a bit of extra work going into growing bananas in the eco-ganic way. So the red-tipped bananas cost a little bit more than other bananas. But are there benefits for the consumer of choosing these red-tipped bananas besides knowing that you're helping the environment? Why do you think these bananas are so popular? Why do people do pay that little bit more for them?

SPEAKER_04 17:55

One of the things we did in the very beginning, Tanya, was put in a management system and the growers follow a protocol. So it's like growing to a recipe. Because it was really important if you're going to identify the product, you wanted it to perform the same. So each time you went back, the product would taste the same. And that's a big problem for a lot of products where you go and buy a piece of fruit one day, you go back to buy more, but it tastes different. And that's because it's come from a different farm growing a different way. So it was really important that we made sure that every time you bought a red tip banana, it tasted the same. And because of that, the fruit has a sweeter, creamier flavour. It's denser and it has a longer shelf life. It it grows more slowly, it stays on the tree longer, and because of that, it has a longer shelf life. One of the biggest things for us was we were doing a uh Royal Sydney Easter show back in 2004 and it was pensioner day, and we thought our biggest concern was the can pensioners afford to buy our product. And when they started coming through the dome, Frank was talking to a couple and they said, Oh, we buy these bananas, and we said, Really? And they said, Yeah, they're like bananas used to be. We can wrap them up in a tea tail and put them in the bottom of the fridge and they'll keep for a week. And it was like music, music to our ears because it meant that to farm this way we were able to reach all of the demographic and we weren't leaving anybody ex excluded.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yeah, the demand must be pretty big because you can get them all over Australia in supermarkets everywhere, and I understand internationally now.

SPEAKER_04 19:23

Yes, we've been supplying through Sydney markets to Hong Kong and Singer for quite a few years, but recently Frank started with the help of Trade Investment Queensland going to some of the food shows in Japan. We've always felt that Japan was a good market for and he was fortunate enough to meet the chairman of one of the big companies over there, and he just fell in love with what we'd done and said, Will you take one of my people and look after them, bring them on your farm to learn all about what you've done? And we had Tamaki with us for two years working in our business and on the farm.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 19:57

And he's now back in Japan selling our product in Japan. And the biggest thing, you know, in marketing 101 was always you needed to have somebody from that culture working in your business in that country. And that was our biggest weakness, and that's the obstacle that we've overcome to get the success in this market is that we've now got somebody from our company now working in Japan. A bit every Thursday, you know, Frank and Tamaki have a roundup and talk about all the issues, all the opportunities, what's working, what's not working, to be able to talk to that customer direct is a huge thing for success in an export market.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Wow. And so your method of farming is called ecogenic. And so you've touched on before, it's not the same as just organic, and it's your own method, which you trademarked, and you've got a few other farmers growing in your method. So, what exactly is ecogenic method and how does that differentiate from organic or biodynamic and some of those other terms?

SPEAKER_04 20:58

When you think about a system, it's not uh the the structure of a framework of a system, it's not any different. It's a certification system, and we use an ISO, an international standard for that framework of how our protocol has been written up so it can be audited. And the reason we chose that name, we sort of did uh think tank and we had all these names written all on the board, and it was about eco stands for ecological, so it's about the ecosystem, and the ganic was part of like organic, and people resonate that with being more natural. So that's how we created that word. And with the farming, you've got integrated pest management, IPM, and that's something that's been around for 40 years, and it's about you only use that chemical if you need to use it. This was completely different. We call it IEM, integrated ecological management. So it's about learning about your ecosystem, learning about the role of everything that lives in that ecosystem and how you work with it. So we have entomologists that go on farm fortnightly. We have got reporting systems that have been set up with the support of scientists from Queensland government. So Frank can look at those reports and know exactly what's going on that farm. So we've got indicator species, there's ants, spiders, beetles, there's three or four different types of reporting that we have, and he can just look at that report and know, yes, this farm is doing exactly what I've asked of him. And that was very important for us was the integrity in the system and also a system that could be audited. And we've got scientific evidence to back that. And that's very important for ACCC too, because times are changing. And ACCC is really coming down on greenwashing, especially in claims about food and stuff like that. So our system has all of the science to stand behind any claim that we make in the marketplace.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yeah, and so is it right that if something's labelled as organic, it means that they're using eco-friendly products to control the pests, but they still are removing the insects? Is that right?

SPEAKER_04 23:01

In an organic system you have products that you're allowed to use and that you're not allowed to use. If you've got an organic product, an organic herbicide or a soft insecticide that's organic certified, and it's still performing the same function as a commercial product is or a synthetic product and killing the insect, then you're interfering with what you want to come back in an ecosystem balance.

SPEAKER_05 23:26

I think it's pretty simple. If you actually seen some insects on the ground, right? One I suppose you didn't want, you got there and you sprayed it with a synthetic insecticide. Obviously you would kill all of those insects that were there and they would all die. If you applied the same principle and then you use an organic insecticide and you sprayed that area with an organic insecticide, it would perform the same task, the same outcome would happen. So the thinking behind that is that it was just about replacing products. But the thinking was different in our case because we wanted to be able to use nature, right? Nature created its own funguses to kill certain insects or certain mites or thrips in the system. So to keep that balance in the system so that you don't end up with a pest problem. We've recognized all arise from imbalances that you create in your farming. Whether they be organic, whether you put a lot of compost on, which is seen to be fantastic, but it will also create imbalances in the ecosystem because that's what happens when you don't know what's happening in the ecosystem, you don't know all the critters and everything that's there, then you're actually flying blind, you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:39

And you can create all these problems later on from it.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

So, Frank, obviously there would have had to have been a fair bit of study on your part to understand the insects that would inhabit your farm and understand their roles in that. What type of insects do you have and what role did you learn that they play to help you?

SPEAKER_05 24:57

The understanding for ropes for me was that you know you've got all your insect orders from your hymoniptera, your coleoptera, your mitra, uh diphtra. So all of those things are flies, a diphthora, hymeniptera, ants and wasps and bees and coleoptera, beetles. So these are the insect orders. So we follow that. We have traps and we measure what we're collecting in those traps. So we can actually see evidence throughout the year, through the change of the cycles throughout the year, what is actually happening, the populations and how they are changing, and then we're able to determine over the years then the changes that are happening. Measure those changes across other aspects of the soil health that we measure, and that could be nematodes in the soil, that could be fungi populations in the soil as well. They all relate to one another, and you can actually see the difference. So as the soil health becomes more balanced and better, and more diversity in the soil health, we start to see the insect populations change as well. And one of the ones that was very clear to us was the uh Lepidoptera order, and that was the butterflies and moss. We could see a clear synergy there between the soil health, uh good soil health, I should say, and good butterfly population. It's fantastic to see, and we can actually now understand much, much better what our ecosystem's doing. But it's taken years and a lot of monitoring.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Yeah, it sounds like a lot of extra work. Would you say that this is a lot more labour intensive than chemical methods of farming, or are some aspects of it easier since you don't have to spray the chemicals?

SPEAKER_05 26:34

We felt that years and years ago, chemicals were the easiest solution. You didn't have to worry about the environment, you didn't have to worry about any of those things, what was happening in that aspect on the farm because we didn't have the solutions, and it was easier to farm that way. But today, you know, farmers are trying to make those changes, and we actually went a long way. You took it and ran.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 26:56

Yeah, we went a long way. And the result now has been really, really good. But it takes years, but we've got good results. Things like metarithium in our soils, and we recognise that metarhizum is a fungus that controls a lot of our pest species in the banana fields, and we know that we need a certain percentage of metrhysia in our soils to actually have a control mechanism. So these are the things that become very important, these are the things that you start to recognise. Look, it certainly makes you more sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

I'm really picturing it in my mind where on your farm Frank and Dion and I'm just seeing all the butterflies everywhere and Oh, they must be happy insects. That must mean you have more birds because birds eat insects. And I'm I'm hearing it. I can only imagine that there must be a big difference in the sound of a farm with chirping insects compared to one with everything dead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:48

Yeah, exactly. That's the right picture. I think the biggest smile I have is just recently, it's been the last few years, we've had the Pacific Black Tuck that comes in every year. So just as the wet season starts, they come around. It's just absolutely fantastic to see them coming into our banana field and laying their eggs i in our bananas. And to me that was the biggest tick from nature to say how fabulous this is.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

And they want to have their babies in your farm. That's the biggest compliment. Mother Nature approves. But it's very similar. We know that they did studies a while ago that the noisier reefs that have more activity on it draws more of the new coral spawns in. It sort of attracts that growth area. So the other farms that aren't adopting your method where it's all quiet and whatever, then we go to your farm, comparing that to a bleached coral to swimming across the reef to a fully healthy non-bleached coral and listening to all those noises and looking at all that nature, that's pretty much what you've done. You've drawn that life back, right?

SPEAKER_05 28:45

Absolutely. And look, I just wouldn't believe it because we were looking at them and they'd be flying over and they'd fly down, and the boys be walking in the paddocks, of course, and and picking them would see the ducks' nest, and they would make their little nest because we have a lot more grass and weeds in our farm, but they have got perfect nesting places. And they're just coming to our farm and none of the other farms, which I find just incredible.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

The ducks are pretty fine.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

You could start putting in little animal Airbnbs, mate. You could make a fortune. All the animals are moving in.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

They don't pay much. Well, they might give you some manure.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah, well, that'll help.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

If you want duck manure.

SPEAKER_05 29:20

That's fantastic. That to me, yeah, that's the sort of thing that it's paid back. It is from nature. It's paid back, it just puts a big smile on on all our faces. It really does.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

When I was a kid, I always wished that I lived on a farm, but I never have. But I think one of the biggest attractions of it is being surrounded by nature.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Just animals everywhere. Yeah. As far as your cost goes with running your farm compared to when you used to buy the synthetic fertilizers, etcetera, there'd be a big difference, wouldn't there, in cost in production?

SPEAKER_04 29:53

I'm the one that pays the bills.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Right. So compared to say ten years ago when you had to buy all the fertilizers, buy the tarn and all that sort of stuff, to now 20 years ago, that's like is that cataclysmically different?

SPEAKER_04 30:05

It's just like nature, it's a trade-off. You've got savings on a huge amount of inputs, but then you've also got a reduction in yield.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

And you've got a longer growing, slower growing crop, and the two balance each other out.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Right.

SPEAKER_04 30:19

And because we've been able to identify the product and get that extra price for it over a commercially grown product, that's covering the cost for the grower to be able to farm this way, and that's so, so important. We've actually eliminated certain functions in the steps of farming. So there are huge savings in different areas. But then again, you've got more labour as well. So it's a trade-off and it's about making sure that you're balancing the books with regards to your natural capital as well as your financial situation. Something that Frank looked at very, very carefully in the beginning when he said to me back in 1999, I think I can do this commercially. And it was like, as I said to you before, six months later, if we're going to have to be at the mercy of the marketplace and just get paid back whatever they feel like they can pay us, it wasn't going to work. And that's the big challenge, not only for sustainable production, but for any agriculture in Australia, is being at the end of that food chain and not being able to get paid to cover your cost of production. We will never solve the problem of environmental issues if we cannot do that.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 31:29

And it's I don't want to get political, but it's something the government needs to start looking at seriously. Like put outcome-based requirements around any money that you hand out. Otherwise, what are you doing? All you're doing is aiding and abetting. It's like a cancer. You're treating the symptoms and you're not treating the cause.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

What I understand is that all the different insects do different roles, like improving the soil quality and some of those predatory insects like ads and lots, which a lot of ants are actually working for us doing a really important job. They are eating for the hard ads and protects. So something crafting talks about getting a stuff right now. So don't automatically make enemies with ads and wasps.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Oh well, I know someone has an enemy with wasps. Yeah, yeah. My partners are like a wasp magnet.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Oh no. Well, as long as they're at a safe distance and they're doing their job on the farm, they're not going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

That's right, they can go and do their thing and that's right.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Frank and Diane, when you adopted your new ecogenic farming methods over twenty years ago, what did other farmers in the area think about you adopting this new style of farming? And do some of them today still question your methods?

SPEAKER_04 32:54

We were laughed at. We were the joke of the industry for about two years and then started growing in the marketplace. It was like, oh, it's all it's not real, it's a sham, it's this, it's that. And then when we did the first Royal Sydney Easter show, which was 2003, we'd taken a stand in the Woolworths dome, and that was when Coles and Woolworths actually came to us. So we've been in Coles and Woolies since 2004, so that's twenty-two years we've been in the supermarket now. That's when things started to change. But I really don't feel that it's supported. And and I I kind of get it, because if you think how not just bananas, but many industries have been able to expand and grow through using chemicals that work better and fertilizers that give you more yield. All of that research was done in those days by the extension of government departments and it was funded by the big companies, you know, all the companies that develop those products. So there was all this research being done into how do I grow a bigger piece of fruit? Okay, now I've done that, I've created this problem, so I now I need a chemical to protect the fruit from this. And then some 40 years later you find out that even with the use of IPM, you're growing a crop in a sterile environment. But the farmers were conditioned to this over a long period of time. So you've actually got second generation farmers that really don't know the way our farmers, like Frank's grandfather, actually grew a crop. So it's it's a dependence that that's well, you're dealing with deep mental models of what people know and what people don't know. And that's really hard to change that psyche.

SPEAKER_05 34:44

I think you become an addict, I suppose. You become so dependent on products to farm because without them you can't farm. And there's never been an alternative. And I think organics have certainly moved in that direction, and it's been a good thing in that sense, but I think the part that was missing was the connection between the actual mechanisms of how everything works. So probably that's what's missing in the organics. That's what has been our strength, has been learning how to do that. We have our farmers that have projects and we're all engaged in those projects and we're always constant where there's there's an appetite for learning and continual learning about what's actually happening in our soils. Which is just fantastic because we actually see solutions that are coming out of that that are better financial solutions for growers and it's giving them confidence and an appetite.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

So you invented this ecogenic method of farming, and now you've got other farmers that have become interested and are now growing according to your method. Do you wish all farms were pesticide and fertilizer free, or largely pesticide and fertilizer free? And could that ever be achieved in future?

SPEAKER_05 35:58

Oh, I think we're all marching to that place, you know, but it's like everything, some will adapt and adopt it real quickly, and some will take a long time to adopt, and some probably won't.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

So you're better off being ahead of the curve, really, like you guys are. Yeah. The pioneers.

SPEAKER_05 36:14

Yeah, and it's giving opportunity to the marketplace. We have consumers that are responsive and see the difference because if you're growing a piece of fruit or food that's in a healthy environment and it's got all the microbes in the soil, you have a better complex of vitamins in the fruit, a better tasting fruit, and a longer shelf life. That all comes part and parcel of soil health. And I think the markets are responsive to that. There's certain parts of the markets that are very responsive to that, and that is actually how we got into the Japanese market because they they looked at our bananas and tasted them and said, Wow, these are different to the ones we're getting from other places. And the next question was why? And we delivered eco gannic to them then, and they they got it. And they said, Well, so that's why. And it's it's yeah, it's been a fantastic thing. But I think that opportunity exists for it's not just for bananas, it can be for a lot of products uh that we grow in Australia that that we can access those markets.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Yeah, you guys are ahead of your time. Uh the government's latest water quality report on the Great Barry Reef found that the water pollution on the Great Barry Reef is still at concerning levels. And I think we've sort of already touched on that there are probably things that the government can do to make it easier and more viable for farmers to reduce their chemical use, whether it's you know, providing more incentives or a bit more support for doing the right thing and uh making that a bit easier for farmers because it's obviously not an easy job, and it's a very important job growing everyone's food and fibre. But unfortunately, that's all we have time for today. So, Frank and Diane Starker from Pacific Go's Eco Bananas in Inusphale. It's been really amazing learning about how you grow these ecorganic bananas. So thanks for all your amazing work and thanks for joining us on Word on the Reef today.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Thank you so much tomato. I'm going to promote these bananas what you wouldn't believe. Just start growing as many as you can, alright? Such a great job, guys. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Thank you. Thank you. Have a great weekend.

SPEAKER_01 38:23

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Bye. And thanks to all our listeners for joining us on Word on the Reef with me, Tanya Murphy, and co-host Red Fair. We'll be back next week with more Marine Science Adventures at 10 a.m. Friday on Kent FM 89.1. This joint broadcast live from the Kent FM studio, which is on the land of the Gimoy World Fire Up. We'd like to send our effects of past and present. And don't forget you can follow us or send us a message at Instagram.com slash word on the rate broadcast. That's all for this week.