CANEGROWERS Around the Paddock
CANEGROWERS advocates on behalf of sugarcane growers in Australia. This podcast series examines some key issues and challenges and celebrates the successes.
CANEGROWERS Around the Paddock
A Rapid Rise, Relentless Damage & The Long Road To Recovery - Cairns grower recall shocking Spring flood
A sudden September flood tore through the Russell River and Babinda Creek, smashing levee banks, blanketing new plant cane with debris, and forcing growers to rethink recovery under a tightening clock. We share first-hand accounts, real costs, policy gaps, and why community support and better forecasting now matter more than ever.
• shock rise of the Russell River and Babinda Creek
• rapid erosion, topsoil loss, and trash blanketing
• plant cane damage and long-term yield impacts
• rail line repairs and logistics delays
• costs of levee rebuilds and laser-levelling
• push for disaster declaration and grants
• red tape on using own machinery and materials
• mental health strain after four wet years
• unreliable forecasts and risky input timing
• practical recovery priorities before the wet
The rate at Rose at was unbelievable, caused by rain further up in the catchment.
SPEAKER_00:What was unfolding in front of me was was I I could only liken it to a to a tsunami coming down the mountain. It was um it was unbelievable.
SPEAKER_03:This has happened in September and it's topped the river in places that hasn't topped since the year that Bozus paid fullback for Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_06:There's probably 80 hectares that's probably unsalvageable. If we can't get assistance, it's all got to come out of the back pocket, and that sometimes is very, very costly and sometimes unaffordable.
SPEAKER_01:I'm Renee Clough. Welcome to Around the Paddock. The Babinda area on the southern end of the Cans Cane growing district is renowned for its wet weather. Sitting in the wet tropics at the base of Queensland's two highest mountains, Bartelfrere and Bellenden Kerr. But an unseasonable mid-September downpour, just as new plant cane was still being established, shocked those who thought they'd seen it all. I'm in the Bonzo's shed at Mirawinny on the banks of the Russell River, which was inundated with flows from a 400 millimeter dumping in just a matter of hours. Leo Bonzo and his brother Joe Bonzo, who owns separate farms in this part of the world, join us today, along with Daniel Messina, who also farms alongside the Russell River just to the west of here, and Luke Calcadno, whose farm bordering Babinda Creek was inundated too. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us on Shed Talk today. I'd like you to paint a picture of that early spring day when that flood event occurred. Luke, I'll start with you. Can you share your experiences?
SPEAKER_02:Um So for me, I farm on higher land than the others here on the side of the Bruce Highway. Uh Babinda Creek flows through my property in Giddens Creek. Um, part of the Russell catchment, though, as well. And for me, the most significant damage has been erosion, particularly in plant cane. Um, some ratoon cane as well. Deposited trash, debris, uh paddocks scaled out, and then that topsoil deposited into the next paddock. It's just yeah, that more or less most of the farm is is affected by some form of erosion, topsoil loss or deposition. Um yeah, lots of work required to level everything back out. Uh some paddocks, particularly the plant, the it'll never be the same until it's nissed out and replanted, unfortunately. Uh which is disappointing because plants are start of your of your cycle and it's supposed to be the best the paddock's ever going to be. And uh starting from a low point now, but um, yeah, so that that's me more or less. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um were you actually there on that farm the the morning that everything it all hit the fan basically?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yep, I was. I was there all day. Um that level is in the five years I've occupied that property, uh, that that's the highest I've seen the level. Um, not the longest I've seen it up, but it is the highest. Uh, we it was definitely higher than the Cyclone Jasper flooding. Uh my house was almost inaccessible, actually, and it's considered pretty floodproof. And uh the the rate it rose at was unbelievable, um, caused by rain further up in the catchment the uh previous night. And then we Babinda actually, Babinda Mirawini area got severe localized rain throughout that day to uh add to the problem. And so they basically get up in the morning and at daylight the creek's primed more or less, it's ready to burst the banks already from the rain further up, and then yeah, just um localized rain with no let up more or less all day, and property was underwater most of the day with rapid current through it, so lots of damage.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and it was the same for you, Daniel. I would imagine being on the on the side of the Russell River, a lot of that water that fell in the Topez area, that 400 miles came down the hill straight down that river. What was it like there?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's right, Renee. Um I going back to that morning, I uh it was my my turn for the school drop-off, and I dropped my daughter off at the school, which is uh near in the in the vicinity where I farm, up there in uh Bartle Freer. Um, and I drove down and just parked the vehicle and walked down to the river, and what what was unfolding in front of me was was I I could only liken it to a to a tsunami coming down the mountain. It was um it was unbelievable. I've been there 25 years now, and I've never seen the water rise like that ever. Um so I walked down to the lower area of the um farm and the water was uh just cascading over the over the um levee bank and just tearing, tearing through the bottom paddocks and tearing through all the levee banks, and it was um it was something that was quite extraordinary to see, was you know catastrophic actually.
SPEAKER_01:And and what kind of damage have you sustained there?
SPEAKER_00:Oh look, there's like you know, a lot of erosion. Um there's um actually large rocks actually came in from the river, and for the you know, for the water to carry those rocks in over those levee banks and into the paddock was the force and the current of the water, you know, it's tested, it's just shows how how much must have been there to be to be able to do that. Um but erosion and like like trees, large logs and trees that were being um deposited in in the middle of the of the fields, you know, needs to be all cleaned up and um and all the repair that needs to be done to the headlands and access ways. Um look, this the trash blanketing was was a big problem. Um as the water rose, it it took the trash and then deposited it further down. I was a little bit fortunate than a lot of others. It it the water rose to a level that it actually took it from my place and you know took it down to some more unfortunate farmers downstream and probably settled down there. But it's you know, there's a lot of uh cane that's going to be compromised by by that trash blanketing settling on top of it.
SPEAKER_01:And not just next year or this year, but for years to come.
SPEAKER_00:That's correct, yeah, because it'll it'll kill those those areas of cane out and those areas of land out and the cane won't won't obviously produce there for the for the for the cycle of that crop.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Um Joe Bonzo, so you are further downstream on the Russell River. I actually tried to drive past your place on the on the morning of this event and the road was flooded. I could not get through. What was happening on the other side?
SPEAKER_05:Well, I've never seen I've seen the Russell River rise, I've never seen it rise at that extent where the the other three creeks that that enter the Russell were being pushed back. They couldn't handle the water, the volume of water Russell was pushing back, so they just cut across the whole property and just made one big link. They've taken river banks away, uh levee banks away, they've tailed a new fresh plant out, deposited it down further into blocks. Um it actually crossed went from the Russell into the into the Lennons, then from the Lennons into the Alice and from the Alice into the canal, and it's just made big trenches everywhere. So yeah, it's a disaster. I've never seen it rise. I've been there 60 years, I've never never seen it that rise that fast.
SPEAKER_01:In sixty years.
SPEAKER_05:In sixty years.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. And what sort of damage have you sustained?
SPEAKER_05:Well, over the whole property you could nearly say there's probably 80 hectares, that's probably unsalvageable, but with a lot of work you could you could salvage bits and pieces. Um that's about all you'll get. And you have to replant and laser level and God knows what else you have to do to get it back to scratch. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I want to talk about the recovery in just a sec, but first we need to hear from Leo. Leo, you've got a lot of land along the the Russell as well, and all of the the canals and all of the drainage works that actually are alongside.
SPEAKER_06:All this here, this a Russell River right behind us. It goes all the way and it travels a whole distance. There probably two kilometers probably travels a whole distance. It came within CUI of coming through the shed here. The water. There's a pipe in the middle of the paddock there, a floodgate. It came through that and it broke its bank right along, and it came right up to the shed. There was a little isolated patch here. It went over the top of the railway line and broke its banks and rushed through the farm. The main drain, the 67th Swamp Drain, was empty at the time. The river came up faster than Babinda Creek did, and the drain did. And the amount of damage and scouring that's been done on the western side of the railway line is ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. I've got gravel, stones like that, I've got holes. All dug out all the way along the river. The height of the river here, if you go up to my home farm and I live up the top end of Bucklands Road, the water has started to cross the road in front of my house. I have seen it come through my house, but um only that much. And all the way down your place, water was coming across the road. So that's the height of the river. The river touched the main road bridge up the road here on the main highway. It was touching the cement, uh, the road itself. Any higher than that, and we would have had a bigger problem again than what we've got. Too fast, too quick, no backup rain, no backup rain. The amount of rain we had here compared to what came up at Topaz, we could have handled. But that 400 odd millimeters that came up there and caught the Russell catchment. There was nothing we could do about it.
SPEAKER_01:It's very similar to what happened after X Tropical Cyclone Jasper, isn't it?
SPEAKER_06:Exactly. Except that with Tropical Cyclone Jasper, it sort of came over a period of time, and um uh 67 Fob drain Babinda Creek came up, and when it crossed over, the two waters sort of slapped together, and it wasn't quite as devastating to the erosion and that. It still killed crops and everything. That's an unknown thing. Because if you go back through the farm and you head off on Dixon Road, you'll see piles of trash that thick, all piled up against the side of the cane that's still standing there, and uh that was Babinda Creek, and uh it was disastrously high, as as you know.
SPEAKER_01:You talked about the rail lines being inundated too. How did they fare? Were they damaged?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, we spent a week with the mill um held in repair so that we get the locos through. No, no, no cane could come from the northern end through here, because that's the main thoroughfare, until the line was repaired.
SPEAKER_01:You said that there has been water through your house a little bit further up from here. Um, but has that ever happened in September?
SPEAKER_06:No, that was a November flood or a December flood, I forget what it was, or a February flood.
SPEAKER_03:February the second. Oh February the second.
SPEAKER_06:February the second, there you go. Where it came through, and um I had everything, I all rolled all in that shut, and when it disappeared, because it's sort of that's a high spot, and then it runs down into the farms and runs right down through the swamp. Yeah, you know, the minute the river starts to drop, the water disappears there real quick. Just open up the doors, get the hose out, and hose the hose out. That's about all you can do.
SPEAKER_01:And what about for the actual farmlands now? You've had a bit of practice at you know, recovery events. Um, what what do you have to do now to get the farm looking moderately back to normal?
SPEAKER_06:Well, at the moment we're in October, everything's getting too late to do too much recovery work now, outside a bit of patch planting or that sort of thing. Um, if you want to take that risk, that's all you can do. Um you've got to wait till next year. This is this is our fourth year in a row. It's getting to the stage where uh patience is wearing very thin.
SPEAKER_01:And the devastating thing, as as a couple, I know definitely Luke mentioned, is that it happened while you were planting, you know. You try to finish planting by the end of September. This was a few weeks earlier than that. Well, I know there was either planting happening or newly established plant cane in the ground, and it just got hit hard.
SPEAKER_06:I've uh been here, same as Joe. We came here together in 1967. I've never seen a flood in September. I've seen them later, October, November. I've never seen one in September, and I've never seen the sort of weather that we've been getting the last four years where you lose most of your August and you lose most of your September, so you're stuck with late planting, which puts you in a position where you don't know whether you're going to make it or not.
SPEAKER_03:I agree with what these fellows are saying. I've got the same damage. I've been here longer than them. I've seen the floods in the wet season after Christmas. This has happened in September, and it's topped the river in places that hasn't topped since the year that Boses played pulled back for Jerusalem. That's all I've got to say.
SPEAKER_01:How long have you been farming for, Ron?
SPEAKER_03:All my life, 81 years.
SPEAKER_01:81 years, yeah. Yeah, it's a long time for you know, you would have seen a lot.
SPEAKER_03:Yep. I've seen a lot of floods, but this, like I said, it's topped the river banks, but it's never topped in my lifetime.
SPEAKER_01:Is there a need for for this event to be declared a natural disaster?
SPEAKER_06:For us in Babinda, yes. There's that much damage, like Joe said, banks of the river, levy banks have been washed away, they've all got to be replaced, and the only and if we can't get assistance, it's all got to come out of the back pocket, and that sometimes is very, very costly and sometimes unaffordable. Um yes. But we should be able to get a grant, not alone. I'm sorry, but that's we've we've been belted around now long enough that we should be able to get a grant and not alone. I'm serious about that, and I think these people here would would all agree with me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Joe, for you, how much do you reckon this is going to cost for you to repair?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, well until over the half a million dollar mark. Yeah. When you start putting everything together. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What does that include?
SPEAKER_05:Well, it'll include repairing of river banks because they've broken through everywhere. They've scoured through and tried to make a new trench, a new path, the rivers. Uh so that all has to be repaired. Um, then you've got to replace the crop once it's been repaired. Um, yeah, there's quite a bit of damage done there. Yeah, more than what I have expected to see.
SPEAKER_06:You know, so and when you have devastations like this, you run short of cash, you run short of of everything. So to do the repairs, and the repairs we're doing on the river banks and everything else, basically is government property. You know, the Esplanade, which is where your headlands, where your levy banks and all that are, we're deemed responsible for repairing it. So I think it's a fair uh comment to say that give us a grant and work with us so we can get the we can get the job done. They say you've got to go to your local authority, the River Improvement Trust. Every time you go near that lot there in the council, we got no money. And then when they do get some money, we seem to miss out again. We're gonna be asked to put our hand in our pocket because we can't get the funding and we can't afford it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:So the damage goes on and on and on and on.
SPEAKER_01:Daniel, we were talking before about how this is not just gonna cost this year or next year, but well into maybe, you know, a whole crop cycle. Can you tell me what impact has this had on your farm management decisions?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, look, Renee, it's um, you know, you you gotta piece it all together and and make a a business decision on what you're gonna do, whether you try and salvage what's there or you try and you know, maybe cut the crop that's left there next year and then replant next year. So I suppose it's you know up to an individual on the size and the scale of the damage that's occurred on their property, whether they'll um make that call. Um look I I I I'm you know, I've got a another concern that you know up here in the where tropical in this area where we farm, you know, the area under cane is is disappearing. The you know, the the tons going to the mill are making the you know the area less viable. And any any assistance that or money that can be granted to us to to get it fixed sooner rather than later would um help get that cane back into production or that land back into production and you know in in provide cane for the throughput for the mills.
SPEAKER_01:Now, Daniel, a lot of people would know you have off-farm income as well. You're a representative for QSL. Have you been eligible for grants in the past? Does that make you ineligible?
SPEAKER_00:I think um on the last one they they made um they they put up so like my farming enterprise is larger than than like the income that I get from from my day job. So I'm I'm okay, but there are a lot of smaller growers who don't fit that bill. And I think the last one that they um they changed the rulings on that to allow those growers to be more eligible, and I think that's very important to allow them to get their properties fixed up. I don't think you'll find anybody in the up here that doesn't have a another job or a harvesting contract or a truck or some other business to you know offset farm income. Um so I think it's pretty important that that change has has occurred to to allow those growers to be able to access those funds to get the repairs done as soon as possible. Probably one thing just to add, Renee, is um, you know, I the Christopher Foley government and you know the Cureide or whoever makes the um legislation around the rules of what can be claimed and what can't be, they they've made some pretty good changes. You know, they've included plant cane now in in being able to be cla claimed. But you know, I I get to talk to a lot of growers in in my day job, and one of the biggest things that I hear them tell me is that they own a you know an excavator or a truck or a backhoe, and to do the work on their own place, they can only claim diesel, and and it's really causing issues because they if they get somebody else to do it, they can claim the full benefits of it and the cost, the true cost, I should say, of it. But yet if if they if they got to do it themselves, all they can do is claim claim the diesel, which is isn't right because there's wear and tear on those vehicles, there's there's you know other things that you know you you that that that's cost associated with running that that equipment. Um I I think that needs to be looked at and changed. I mean, Joe's probably he can probably explain it a bit more. He's got a a quarry here and he he can't even he can use his own rock and all that for his own place, but he he you know doesn't get paid for it. He's got to go somewhere else to get it to get get the benefits of it. So I yeah, I I think that nearly needs to be looked at.
SPEAKER_05:The the thing is that uh, you know, you could do a lot more work with the material you got. Cartage is short, material is available, and it's good material, yet I can't use it for my own repair work. I've got to go and buy it down the road, you know, and all I'm eligible for is a bit of diesel or maybe a bit of wear and tear, and that's about it, which is is wrong. When we have to cart it maybe 30 or 40 kilometers away, or maybe even further, and buy it from a different quarry. I can't see where where where the sense in that is, you know. But that's what our government's uh put forward and that's what we have to live with.
SPEAKER_06:The other thing is also that when you say you get awarded half a million dollars, like Joe said, right? If you send it out to a contractor that brings the stone in from NQ or Sapala's Quarries or wherever, they've got to travel 60, 70 kilometers to get to the job site and whatever have you, that half a million dollars shrinks real quick and you don't get the job done. If we're allowed to do it, like you've got river improvement trust, supervision, this, that, everything else, that nothing goes above board. If we're allowed to do it, that half a million dollars does the job, or very close to doing the job because we utilize every dollar properly.
SPEAKER_02:Goes a lot further after Cyclone Jasper, you know, uh, myself and my father's properties, widespread damage, drains, silted up, what have you. Some of us can't wait for a contract, you've got to do it immediately. In the weeks after that, yeah, back over you could have bolted me in from the outside like a submarine, more or less. Um, and uh, you know, important work then is either not done or you're doing it at all hours of the night. It's a lot of strain on your operation, and I'm not you're not eligible to get paid for that where either wear and tear or your own wages. Now, I don't think I'm any sort of a hundred dollar an hour construction operator. Uh, but if you were to be truly compensated, you've got two choices is uh to either get a contractor and and as uh Leo and Joe said, struggles to stay under budget that way uh all of the time, or you're left with unskilled operators who do probably more damage to your equipment than what you can cover. So it leaves you in a difficult situation where your best course of action is to just do it yourself for no compensation. Um so that's something that I I think should be looked at as well. Yeah, a bit of a gap in it there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Luke, where do you even start? Does it feel overwhelming?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it does sometimes. Uh, you've just got to start from the most urgent things. I suppose there's nothing we haven't done before, um, unfortunately, um, in this area. But uh for myself, just talking purely from a personal point of view, um got to start with in plant paddocks, you I've got large washouts, you could park a semi-trailer in a couple of them. So that's a good place to start. Um, and as Leo and Joe touched on before, levee banks there are very important thing. And uh the thing I need to stress is that if if things like that, large washouts in in uh freshly worked or planted paddocks, levee banks, river banks, all that infrastructure doesn't get fixed promptly, then when we get our wet season, it's only going to get worse. Um, and that's that's the unfortunate part of it. Um and we're really on a time schedule because from now, you know, everybody's very busy. It's the back end of the season, everyone's run ragged at the moment, but uh but you know, we we're also going to run short of weather to do these sort of jobs very shortly because the wet season's approaching, so it leaves us in a difficult position, and that that's what's added to the severity of this, is that it's come at a at a time that well it it shouldn't statistically or historically, and and um it's amplified the effect, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Amplified the effect probably in more ways than one because I do want to bring up a very in important topic, and that is of mental health. This is the fourth year in a row that you've seen events like this. You've got the wet season approaching, you've got that short window to get things right before you're bound to be inundated again. How does that play on your mind?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it does. It does. Um to see uh well, you you know, you put your heart and soul into your farm, and farming is more than a job for me, it's a passion. And um you work day and night, and then it's always at the start of the year, you're you're always hoping to build on the year that's been, and and if you've had a disaster in the last year, then you you think, oh, hopefully I can leave that behind and and get on to better times, and then we haven't even started next year's crop more or less, and and this already. And uh the thing that makes it worse is that the time if I could just come back to the time of the year again, you know, this August, September is your opportune time. There, you there your drier months, August, September, October generally. You're going and planting your lower paddocks, you're cutting your lower country, your the stuff that doesn't dry out much, um, erosion prone. That's the economically and environmentally responsible way to run your business. And unfortunately, this has now happened. Um it's left us very vulnerable.
SPEAKER_00:Post the flood, I'd, you know, we've got a pretty good community here. Everyone's pretty close. I know there's a lot of um, you know, ringing up and checking in on each other, on neighbours, and you know, I received a number of calls from people, even outside the area, you know, it was it's really humbling to and good to have that to happen, you know, and and it makes you know makes the difference. And, you know, I think this area where we farm here, which is probably amongst, you know, the same as a lot of other growers, a lot of farming communities. So, you know, we all try and stick together and help each other out and band together.
SPEAKER_01:Are you concerned about the climate becoming more erratic?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there's definitely been a change in the particularly in the last five years. It's been it's been very difficult um to work with uh in in this area. It's been definitely an increase in these severe sort of uh and particularly out out of season type uh weather events, and and there the amount of times if I've got to hear one more time from the Bureau that oh the the weather system stalled off the coast or something like that, it's just yeah, it's um it's the and the lack of the lack of forecast accuracy is a problem as well. You know, this this rain event we were supposed to get in the days leading up, I there were there was a bit of conjecture over, you know, were we gonna get 50 mil, were we gonna get 80 mil? I woke up the morning before, looked at the forecast, it had come back to 15 millimetres, I made a business decision to pre-emerge my plant cun. And then we got 300 mil. How are you meant to work with that? You know, like fair enough, it's difficult to forecast the weather, I understand that. But come on, that's a long way off. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You would have been fertilizing returns as well, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_02:Uh I hadn't, but um that was out of the ordinary for me not to have fertilised my low paddocks by then, it was just a case of how busy we had been elsewhere. Um, I hadn't quite got there. It's a godsend that I hadn't. Um because yeah, there it for me, uh as far as underwater early cut ratoons, um, 50 to 60 hectares, which is a large part of my uh large chunk of my uh land in that area, um, yeah, that fertilizer would have been lost to me and and um you know out there in the waterways more or less.
SPEAKER_05:So uh I don't know about changes of climate or climate change. I think it's more like a cycle uh that we're going through. Um it's just unexpected that it's come at this time of the year, you know. So I I can't say anything else about that. It's all in the lap of the gods, you know.
SPEAKER_01:So you've seen many weather events like this, Joe. Um does it get any easier? Do you do you become more resilient or do these still keep you awake at night?
SPEAKER_05:Um it makes you wonder what what what we which way to turn and what you want to do to sort of pick yourself back up and keep going. Um like I said, we've been here 60 years and um yeah, we've had a few events, uh, but nothing like as as serious as this one. Um and not as early as this one, you know, which has caused a lot more damage. But yeah, carry on. Do what we can.
SPEAKER_01:Joe Bonzo ending that podcast. You also heard from his brother Leo, as well as Daniel Messina, Luke Calcagno, and Ron Bevan, who popped in to say good day to. He's the one that was talking about Moses playing for Jerusalem. I'm Renee Clough. Thanks for listening.