Cane farmer Mick Andrejic’s harvest delayed by Cyclone Jasper

Efforts to harvest more than 100 hectares of cane crop have been hampered by record levels of silt and dirt 10 months on from the region’s worst flooding event in a hundred years.

The record breaking floods that swept over Mick Andrejic's Freshwater farm last December have left a layer of silt up to six feet high in some areas. The flooding has affected 250 acres of land used for sugar cane farming, with crop growth and harvesting heavily impacted. Picture: Brendan Radke

Silt and dirt up to 2.1m high has been dumped across cane paddocks in Far North Queensland, with the extent of the damage only being discovered 10 months on from the region’s one in 100-year floods.

When floodwaters ripped through cane farmer Mick Andrejic’s cane paddocks in December last year, he knew his crop would suffer.

But it wasn’t until this year’s harvest the full impact was realised.

A generational cane farmer, Mr Andrejic, whose cane paddocks in Freshwater border the Barron River, has been working the land for the better part of four decades.

But never in his life had he seen a flood so damaging.

“Different areas got affected differently,” Mr Andrejic said.

The record breaking floods that swept over Mick Andrejic's Freshwater farm last December have left a layer of silt up to six feet high in some areas. The flooding has affected 250 acres of land used for sugar cane farming, with crop growth and harvesting heavily impacted. Picture: Brendan Radke

“On the Baron Delta, we had issues with sand being deposited into paddocks with some places up to 6ft or 7ft (2-2.1m) high.”

Mr Andrejic said the amount of silt and dirt in the cane fields was so high, he had to buy a track cane harvester and a stabilising cane cutting machine, normally used in wetter cane growing areas such as Tully.

“In some paddocks, we only managed to cut with a track machine,” he said.
“It was pretty horrendous. I’ve never seen anything like it in farms in all my life.”

Mr Andrejic said the paddocks were so rough in some areas, with large piles of sand and deep holes in the fields, he was afraid his machinery would tip over.

“It wasn’t so much the debris as there was a lot of sand deposited and it became undulating so when the (harvesting) machine comes to the side (the silt) is hitting the elevator bins,” he said.
“If (the bins) weren’t there, I would have rolled over.”

The record breaking floods that swept over Mick Andrejic's Freshwater farm last December have left a layer of silt up to six feet high in some areas. The flooding has affected 250 acres of land used for sugar cane farming, with crop growth and harvesting heavily impacted. Picture: Brendan Radke

As a consequence, Mr Andrejic said he was at least five days behind in his cane harvest.

“Normally we might average 7km (of cane cutting) in an hour, but a for a lot of it, we’re only getting about 2km to 3km per hour because the paddocks are that rough,” he said.

“It’s been a testing year with machinery failing in the harsh conditions and having a lot of breakages we’re not usually associated with, because of the roughness of the paddock,” he said.

On top of the usual harvest, Mr Andrejic said he also had to prepare to plant his next cane crop while trying to level the paddocks for future harvests by towing an old rail log behind his track machine.

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“We’re having to take paddocks out that we planted last year because they got severely damaged by the floods,” he said.

“It wasn’t viable to keep it going so we’re going to chop it all again and replant it, so we’ve basically lost two to three years from the crop cycle as a result of (Tropical Cyclone) Jasper.”

Mr Andrejic said he hadn’t’ been able to put a price on the economic damage yet, but it would be “quite significant”.

“To put a figure on it, it’s a bit difficult to say with what we’ve lost and what we’ve gotta spend to reinstate everything,” he said.

“But we’re going to push through and just keep doing it and trying to get through it all.”

Originally published as Cane farmer Mick Andrejic’s harvest delayed by Cyclone Jasper