Landline

Land Army

Its 20 years for one the world's most important grass-roots movements. The Landcare model has been so successful it’s been copied overseas. At a recent gathering in Adelaide many of those who were around when it kicked off reflected on Landcare’s achievements and perhaps more importantly its future.

Brush with Fame

The Australian landscape has always been a rich source of inspiration to artists however until the 1920s it was virtually men’s only territory. Hilda Rix-Nicholas set out to challenge that convention and won wide acclaim in the prestigious art circles of Europe.

Bran Nue Dae

Back in 2004 Landline dropped in on a school of hard knocks that was using a cattle drive to train young Indigenous kids. Those involved in the program say the kids also gain life experience and self confidence along the way. The program which had its origins on the dusty travelling stock routes of Western Queensland has come a fair way since then as Nicole Bond reports.

Brand Tassie

Tasmania is the country's smallest state but there are big plans to make it a much more important part of Australian agriculture. As state and federal governments are busily buying-back water in the Murray-Darling Basin, in Tasmania hundreds of millions of dollars is earmarked for new irrigation projects. The aim is to turn what was once regarded as the apple isle into a new food bowl for the mainland and the world.

Lentil as anything

We're putting the spotlight on the humble lentil, possibly the first TV show to do so since the BBC comedy The Young Ones nearly 20 years ago. Lately it’s emerged as a very lucrative legume, however while many South Australian farmers are cashing in, across the border in Victoria it’s a different story.

Gone to the Dogs

We head to south-west Queensland where farmers are stepping up the fight against wild dogs which each year cost them tens of millions of dollars in stock losses. As John Taylor reports, experts are now calling for a concerted community campaign to tackle the wild dog problem.

The Breakfast Club

How often have you been so taken with your holiday destination that you've thought of moving there? Well, 20 years ago a Melbourne couple didn't just dream about a tree change, they did it and in the process built a successful family run food manufacturing company that's won a swag of business awards.

Far Flung Fun

As you could imagine, the life of the travelling showman has its ups and downs. There's obviously the exhilaration of performing to captivated audiences. However in between there's countless hours of practice and the monotonous days of travel to and from each gig. Roy Maloy’s show is a throwback to kinder, gentler times, when the thrills and spills were real rather than computer-generated.

Carbon Copy

Australian grain growers need no reminding that the past decade or so has been one of the toughest on record nor that the biggest factor has been the weather. However as Chris Clark reports Australia continues to be one of the world's largest wheat exporters.

Growth Prospects

The collapse of Australia's two biggest managed investment schemes last year has had a devastating impact on the Great Southern region of Western Australia and its 60,000 hectares of blue-gum plantations. More than 250 local jobs were lost and dozens of small businesses were affected. However, as Sean Murphy reports, things are looking up with the plantation's new owners committed to a business plan based on timber production and value adding rather than tax benefits.

Oils Ain't Oils

A decade ago Australia's olive oil industry mainly consisted of small bit players harvesting by hand and processing in tin sheds. As Prue Adams reports its now big business but not everyone's happy.

On the Front Foot

When it comes to disease-free status, being a relatively remote island in the southern hemisphere gives Australia a pretty handy start. However recent global disease outbreaks such as SARS and bird flu (H5N1) have clearly shown no country is immune in the era of mass air travel. Scientists from around the world have been in Melbourne this week discussing the most devastating livestock disease there is foot and mouth.

Bigger Fish to Fry

Aquaculture might seem like a simple solution to the global decline in wild fish stocks. However the problem is the most popular farmed fish species need to eat fish or at least fish oil to get the healthy ingredients which make them such an important part of the human diet. Right now there's a global search for new sustainable alternatives and some of the most promising research is being done right here in Australia.

Pick of the Bunch

Seven years ago, Landline featured a story about an Adelaide based engineer who had developed a way of making paper products from banana tree trunks. It was one of those stories that captured people's imagination. Now as Prue Adams reports the world's first factory making paper and veneer from banana trunks, is up and running in far north Queensland.

Back on Track

How things change, just before Christmas much of outback Australia was being belted by dust storms now it's bursting to life. Widespread summer rain set the rivers flowing and they're still meandering their way across vast floodplains to Lake Eyre for only the second time in 20 years. For the resilient cattle producers in the region it’s been another great confidence booster.

Homer's Epic

The ancient poet Homer gained immortality by writing two epic works the Iliad and the Odyssey. Indeed such was Homer's impact on literature, Odyssey came to refer to grand voyages and adventures. Now a namesake has produced a very home grown epic poem that celebrates Victoria's Wimmera.

Seeds of Life

Eight years since independence, massive amounts of international aid continue to pour into East Timor. The majority of its people live in rural areas in grinding poverty, surviving on less than $1 dollar a day and enduring several months a year of near starvation. An Australian-funded aid agency develops and distributes new varieties of seeds for crucial staple crops such as rice and maize, and as Landline reporter Tim Lee discovered, it’s starting to transform whole communities.

Spat's what Friends are For

Some of Australia's leading aquaculture experts are helping fast-track the fledgling oyster industry in Vietnam. While fish farming has grown rapidly there in the last decade, until recently oysters had been largely overlooked. As Kerry Staight reports oyster are securing a future for struggling farmers in Vietnam.

Import Replacement

There's nothing particularly unique about people being encouraged to eat more of the food they grow themselves, if not what's grown locally, but in the Solomon Islands that push may help save lives. Islanders' diets have become overly dependent on heavily processed, imported food at the expense of local fruit, vegetables and fish. And as Joanna McCarthy reports, the result is an epidemic of diabetes, chronic disease and malnourishment.

Deadly Amber

A popular beverage is being turned into a lethal brew in Vietnam in a bid to knock out one of the fruit industry's fiercest enemies. As Kerry Staight reports brewery waste laced with poison is proving an effective weapon in the fight against fruit flies.

Organic Coffee

Landline features the final in Tim Lee's series of reports from East Timor. As we've seen, a range of Australian aid projects are helping rebuild the tiny nation's subsistence agricultural base which were all but destroyed by Indonesian troops and anti-independence militias a decade ago. As Tim Lee reports, when it comes to export-earning cash-crops, one of Timor's brightest prospects is organic coffee.

Shear Magic

There was a time early last century when Tuppal Station in the NSW Riverina boasted an enormous merino flock and one of the biggest and best shearing sheds in the country. However as sheep numbers dwindled there was no need for an "industrial-scale" shearing complex and the magnificent shed more or less went into mothballs. That is until a couple of weeks back when Tuppal's 72-stand shed stirred to life again for an event that drew many of top blade shearers and thousands of visitors.

Hey Mr Tamborine Man

Being small has been no barrier to success for one of Australia's more unique beverage manufacturers. In fact, Queensland's Tamborine Mountain Distillery boasts the most international awards of any Australian distillery for its range of spirits, schnapps and liqueurs. All from humble beginnings on a two-hectare orchard, growing fruit rejected as unfit for supermarket shelves.

Skins in the Game

Bananas are currently fetching barely half the cost of production so its perhaps not surprising that some in the industry are wondering what else they can do with the fruit to make ends meet. Inevitably an over-supply means more and more bananas will be going to waste, usually chopped up and spread around the plantations for fertiliser. Now thanks to a pilot project in Far North Queensland there could be another powerful alternative.

From Battlefields to Bushblocks

Apart from medals and monuments to the fallen there have been other legacies in the bush such as the establishment of the Soldier Settlement Scheme. Around nine million hectares of land was allocated to returned servicemen and as Chris Clark reports not all of the land taken up was "fit for heroes."

Rice Returns

It's only taken about 40 years or so but finally the second stage of the Ord River scheme is finally underway. It'll increase the total amount of irrigated farmland by just over half to 22 thousand hectares much less than the original architects had imagined. And as Chris Clark reports the expansion coincides with the return of a crop that decades ago was widely seen as a natural fit for the region.

Getting the Cane

The 2010 sugar cane crush is underway in Queensland. This year will be like no other for the state's six thousand cane growers though, for they'll be operating under new state government regulations aimed at protecting the Great Barrier Reef from agricultural chemicals and fertilizers. The introduction of the new ‘reef-wise’ laws, the toughest ever imposed on the industry, has angered growers because they say they're voluntarily making the changes that government and the community wants.

Back on the Sheeps Back

The lamb trade is reaching record heights at sales across Australia and demand for sheep meat is generally outstripping supply. However as Sean Murphy reports the worrying decline in the national flock continues, with numbers now at the lowest level in more than a century.

Out of Darkness

Kerry Staight reports on an industry which has literally mushroomed over the last four decades. While the number of growers may have fallen, mushroom production in Australia has increased tenfold as the industry adopts new techniques and technology.

Fitter Further Faster

2008 was a fantastic year for Australian Equestrienne Meg Wade, as she was named one of the sport's living legends. However in 2009 it all went terribly wrong when a simple fall left the 47 year old elite athlete in a coma with serious head injuries. Intensive care doctors told her family her brain was so traumatised that she might die. However, after weeks in a coma Meg Wade woke up. After nearly a year in hospital, she's now back home on the farm with new goals to walk and ride again.

The Mouse that Roared

Next week marks one of the more curious milestones in the history of rural Australia. It's the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Hutt River province in the mid west of Western Australia. As Sean Murphy reports in 1970 Leonard Casley seceded his property from the Commonwealth of Australia and created his own principality.

Raw Deal

The issue of whether Australian consumers should be allowed to eat products made from raw milk is causing a row. The regulator, Food Standards Australia and New Zealand is currently reviewing national guidelines on the use of unpasteurised milk in dairy products. It's triggered a fiery debate among cheesemakers over whether the current strict standards deny Australians access to the benchmark cheeses of the world.

Message in a Bottle

Stanthorpe in Queensland's south-east Granite Belt is famous for two things: apples and grapes. Yet two local growers figured there wasn't much of a future in simply selling fruit. Instead they decided to add value to it; one went into wine vinegar and the other into apple cider juice and tourism.

Property Counsel

It could be mining, land clearing laws or water but it's one of the hottest topics around at the moment: What rights should landholders have over the property they manage? The High Court has recently ruled that water isn't property like any other and reaffirmed that State Governments don't have to compensate for any property loss. Chris Clark looks at some of the issues.

This Sporting Life

This is the time of year when many Australians are talking football, with a series of finals this weekend in two national codes. But one Queensland town has learnt that sporting success is more than just winning matches. The Condamine Codgers are an over 35's rugby union side based in the Darling Downs and they've gained a reputation not so much for their football skills, but rather their success in making a difference to the local community.

Net Benefits

Government sponsored employment programs in Indigenous communities have had a chequered history with many simply failing to deliver long-term work opportunities. Yet often where they are making a difference, it’s because there is a genuine ongoing exchange of ideas between bureaucrats and the community itself. That's why in far north Queensland the community at Lockhart River has once again set up a fishing co-operative.

Master Class

Chemistry classes in Queensland high schools have gone a little bit country. The new curriculum is designed to teach teenagers how to make, eat and appreciate cheese and encourage them to think about where their food comes from.

Closing the Net

On much of the New South Wales Coast and into southern Queensland this week huge schools of mullet are spawning. For the fishing families who've chased the mullet run for generations its payday but they wonder for how much longer. As Sean Murphy reports they claim the growth of marine protected ‘no-go’ areas is more to do with catching green votes than protecting fish stocks.

Short Price Favourite

Brunette Downs in the Barkly Tablelands is the epicentre of AAco's sprawling northern beef empire. But for one week a year the cattle make way for horses and a packed program of events that attracts thousands of competitors and visitors from across the country. The event has everything from racing to rodeos and it has pretty much been that way for 100 years.

Best of Landline 2010

28 November 2010

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