When Olive Oil is not Olive Oil

The mislabling of food products in Australia seems to continue unabated. Major supermarkets continue to sell such mislabled products such as "pure, light, extra light olive oil" to an unsuspecting public, who seem unaware that they are buying diluted oil. Much of this so called olive oil, has failed the Australian Standards test for olive oil. The so called oil ,has often been contamjnated by other products, while cheap olive oil often is heat extracted, destroying it's health giving properties. The Australian Olive Oil Council has made repeated represention to various members of parliament, and has had a sympathetic hearing, but more needs to be done to create some action. The major supermarkets continue to sell this poor substitute as olive oil, claiming they will meet Australian Standard when there is a demand, whenever that will be is anyones guess. In the meantime, they continue to sell oils that are unsalable in Europe. It is highly profitable to dump this product in Australia for both themselves and the Australian supermarkets.

The only way to correct this continual practice, is to legalise the requirement of meeting Australian Food Standards by law. The Aust. Olive Council urges anyone concerned about the quality of the food they consume, to write, email, or phone their local members of Federal Parliament, in both Houses, requesting them to support a private member's or hopefully, Government Bill to make such an obligation binding. The people of this country deserve nothing less.

Not only are European producers dumping their olive oil rubbish here, but other importers food products package them here and lable them in large print 'Packed in Australia'. But rarely  tell the consumer  where the item has been imported from. Much of the house brands currently sold in major supermarkets simply say, imported ingredients. This problem of incorrect labeling must be address by everyone living in this country, your health depends on it.

Olives Groves, the eternal tree.

 At this time of the year our olive grove takes on a festive look, the hillside appears to be akin to Christmas decorated trees. Before we started to grow olives, I always believed birds did not like olives, they most certainly are not palatable to human tastes before being pickled.

Parrots are the main villains, they just sit there cracking the olive open in order to eat the seed. They try one, then another until an olive meets their requirement. One lone parrot would not be too bad, but ten, twenty or more can make short work of the crop in no time. Other birds, also seem to be addicted , starlings have this addiction, only they  seem to be more intent on seeing how many they can pluck, drop, pluck, drop, there seems to be some sort of competition to see who can remove the most within some sort of time frame.

The olive tree embodies human history, the beginning of our civilization. The farming, harvesting, and pressing the olives for oil, to be used as food, medicine,  burning for light, stretch back into prehistory. There are gnarled survivors in Lebanon that have been carbon dated to several thousand years. Olive growing therefor is a very serious business, it is not an activity to be entered  into lightly with only short time frame in mind. I must confess that our decorated trees don't seem to be all that effective, I thought the silver and red tape fluttering in the breeze would discourage birds. It seemed to work at first, for a year or so, but not any more, so you see birds do discuss these things among themselves. European olive groves don't seem to have this problem to the same extent, they have already eaten most of the bird life, so numbers are now more controllable.

Another first for this years harvest will be the trying out of a mechanical wand, it consits of two clapping like hands, that also move sideways at the same time, causing the olives to fall onto  tarpaulins around the base of the tree. These machines run on a tractor battery so that you can move from tree to tree. It all sounds very simple, you rake or comb the tree, and the olives fall down! Yields of course are highly problematical, what with the birds, wind and other natural interventions. Is it all worthwhile, I hope so, most things we do in life just don't have the time frame of an olive grove. You need a long vision into the future, plant them hopefully for many generations to come. They are after all called the eternal tree, they can be burnt, chopped down, will withstand heat, frosts and still regenerate, no wonder the ancients loved the olive tree. Sacred to the gods, it is said when Julius Cesar chopped down the sacred olive grove in Spain he sealed his fate.

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A Tale of Lost Legs

A few years ago a farming neighbour of mine enquired as to whether I had lost any legs lately. At first, I was some what perplex, but assured him that the last time I looked everything was still there. No. no, he replied, I mean have you lost any pigs legs. He explained, that he had recently changed his abattoirs because because after some consignment, the old meat works deducted payment for various parts of the carcass. It may be a leg, sometimes half of the rib section, the head and so on. I assured him, I had not experienced any problems of this nature, apart from difficulty in loading large bacon pigs on to the truck, that gave a whole new meaning to the expression of pigheadedness.

He related how on enquiry, he would be told that the missing parts had been condemned, and no, he was unable to inspect the missing parts as they had been deposed of. It was never explained, why a leg and part of the rib cage was not fit for human consumption, while the rest of the animal was fine. All the more so, when the pigs were in tip top condition when leaving the farm. Apparently, this became a major problem around Christmas time for the condition of hind legs, it seemed that often both legs would become contaminated at this time of the year. One can only assume that their loading ramps needed urgent attention. All this goes to show how dangerous transporting livestock can be. Who knows what they are likely to eat on their journey into town.

The hazzards of the grape harvest

Every year it seems to be the same, rain, rain, and more rain. It is almost as though some entity, unknown to mere mortals, decides the sugars are not allowed to reach an acceptable level. In many ways, this is somewhat like running a water hoses into the wine vat. You see, we try to make a wine without irrigation, a wine made by natural methods using the wild vine yeasts, a wine not laced with chemical to prolong it's  shelf life. Every time it rain falls, the vine takes up the moisture, and thus dilutes the sugar level in the berries. This in turn causes a lower conversion rate of sugar into alcohol, resulting in a thin wine without body.

The real frustration of poor results after the pruning, care, netting and so on is hard to explain to anyone who has not experienced it. You may think that is all part of farming, this of course is true, but it does not make it any better to bear. Last year a wasp attack sucked the crop dry, before we were able to pick. They came in swarms straight through the bird netting.Fortunately, this year we set dozens of traps, and caught bucket loads. I exaggerate not, we must have caught tens of kilos of wasps, at least they make good compost. The strange thing about wasps is they seem to undergo a change of diet throughout the summer, at times they crave sugar, at others  rotten meat. Still, while they are gauging themselves they are too blotted to sting.

In the meantime, all we can do is clean out the press and wait.

Okra & The Mafia Drug Trade.

Okra plant.

During my hunt for profitable vegetable crops, I purchased a very handy growers book, it contained everything anyone would need to know about growing commercial crops. There were sections on days to maturity, pest and disease control, water and seed requirements, and even how to store your harvest successfully. Naturally, as I was always on the lookout for exotic product, why bother with the ordonery when you could have something different. In my reseach, I came across a section on the growing of okra. The French call it "ladies fingures", no doubt because the pods have a certain courtians look. I felt I would be hard pressed to find anything more exotic.

My interest in okra, went back to my time in Greece were it was served with lamb or goat in a goulish type dish with tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and herbs. I must confess I have become quite besoted with various okra dishes over the years. This vegitable is also used in Indian curries and Cafun cooking. Most Australian cookery book suggest a pod size of 10cm, but personally I think half that is a far better in taste, flavour and texture. The Americans grow the crop in the Mississippi  Valley called gumbo for Campbell Soup.

But to return to my story, if you have a close look at the photo of okra, you will  realise that it looks very much like a popular smoking substance. This was why my growing the crop became rather amusing.In government controlled irrigation, certain large area farms were allocated a rice acreage, and to insure no one was cheating, the irrigation authority would fly over the area taking photoes to make sure no farmer had planted a larger area than their allowed 50 acres. It appeared, that my okra appeared to look like a banned substance back at police headquarters. The area I was farming had a very active Mafia connection in the drug trade, no doubt due to the large Italian community in this part of Australia.

About mid morning, while going about my normal business, I heard a lot of sireons comming down the highway. Our farm was fairly isolated, about sevenity miles to the nearest town Griffith. The country being flat, sound carried a long way.  Suddenly, a number of police cars carrered into the yard, while policemen started running everwhere. The scene resembled a movie set, although I seemed to have been cast into the main part. The next thing I knew was that I was pinned up agnist the machinery shed wall,  my arms above my head, as I was searched. By now, other police had run out into the okra paddock to collect evidence, taking samples, smelling the leaves, and so on. The best part was the look on their faces when they realised their trophy was not as expected.

Why anyone, with a ounce of common sence, would grow an illegal crop out in the open I have never been able to figure out. The Mafie as far as i knew grew crops in sheds, out of sight.  I had purchased the seed from America, brought it through customs and qurantine, so there had been no clandstine activity at all. The most annoying aspect, apart from the way I was treated, was the lack of any apology, but that's life!

Sustainable Food Supply, the Murray/Darling Irrigation Dedate.

Crop preparation in the irrigation area.

There is a certain degree of irony in the current Murray/Darling River irrigation debate. Here we are with wide spread flooding across N.S.W., while the irrigation centre of Griffith is in the middle of a flood crises, while the debate goes on over the size of irrigation water rights cuts. I don't see myself in any way hostile to environmental issues, but the dramatic suggested cuts 37%  to irrigation water for Australia's food bowl, needs far closer examination from  both the Federal Government and the  conservation movement. Every thing in this world can not necessarily be reduced to black and white.

As an original pioneer settler in the Coleambally Irrigation Area, I feel obliged to to a certain extent the deep concerns of irrigation farmers. The debate seems to be following the usual blinkered course of the conservation movement, all farmers are villains, and the current state of the Murray River is due to farmers taking out too much water. It is all very well for arm chair urban critics, to point the finger at irrigation farming, but we are not talking about over watering the lawn, but Australia food bowl. Most of the criticism is both ill informed and even insulting to the farmers concerned. Most farmers,I have known over some fifty years, consider themselves as custodian of their land, land to be passed on from one generation to the next.

The suggested cuts of some 37%  to water allocation borders on the unbelievable. We are talking about cuts to the areas that supply some 40% of this country's food. Do we intend to import all our food from China, along with everything else? The Coleambally Irrigation Area of which I have personal experience, was developed by a group very hard working Australians. People who were prepared to go and live in this remote part of the country, hundreds of miles from any city in central N.S.W.  Many lived and brought up their families in an enclosed section of  machinery sheds, often for many years. Nearly ever month, some one would be killed in a farm accident, generally due to fatigue from their 16 to 18 hour working days. I doubt many of our urban critics would put up with such conditions for one moment.

Recent improved irrigation techniques have been introduced over the years, from trickle irrigation to laser grading of land for rice cultivation. The Australian Conservation Foundation uses grossly incorrect date about water usage in the Murray-Darling farming areas. Rather than cutting blindly, a study should be carried out to protect the most fertile and productive areas of our farmland, like any property certain sections grow better crops than other parts of the same property. Why would you cull the most productive farmland in Australia. We need to restucture our farming industry, most people don't seem to realize or don't care about the fact, that over the last ten years, Australia has reduced its productive agricultural land by some 25%, due to urban sprawl. This is an urgent matter, of concern to everyone who calls this country home.  It is up to us to make sure that this country remains self sufficient as a  food producer. There is no hard position in the matters our existence, comprise is required from all interested parties.

Pigs Farmers Diary

Attentive audience.

Pigs do have an ear for music.


One big surprises with my new piggery enterprise was the discovery of their musical taste. Each morning when I would visit the piggery to feed and clean out the pens,  I would leave the radio  on a high volume, so as to listen to music  while working. The sows would run across the paddock to sit and listen for an hour or so. Much to my amazement, they seemed to be very fond  of J S Bach, and other classical composers. Whether this was due to the mathematical structure of Bach I never ever found out, but one thing was certain, they didn’t like loud hard metal music or music without melody. They would quickly depart from their prime position ,whenever this type of music was played.

 Our first farrowing came and went and I found myself with some one hundred  pigs to feed. Each gilt [ young sow] produced from eight to sixteen baby piglets. I noticed that the sows with well defined udders and nipples, evenly spaced gave birth to the greatest number of offspring. This enabled them to feed a larger litter satisfactory. Often I would have to move one piglet from one mother to another so they received enough milk. The first few days were critical, as antibodies were absorbed from the sow’s milk. Even so, piglets are born with very low iron ,requiring iron shots to boost their metabolism. This had to be done at a few days old to stop scouring. Even so, I would lose piglets over the first few critical weeks.

Piglets receiving their iron shots

Young piglets at supper.

Running a piggery is not unlike being a duty nurse in a hospital or health clinic, every day something needed attention. All the sows were not necessarily good mothers,  one I remember called Lulu ,when ever she felt peckish would simply stand on one of her young and eat them. I did not keep her very long! It was very interesting to observe all the different personalities, no doubt that is why pigs are considered closest to humans in the animal world.

The babies naturally needed toys, I would put stones into empty drink cans that they would roll around the floor with their noses. At times they seemed to be playing a pig version of football! Then I  would have to hang chains in their sleeping quarters , which they would tug on in the way a dog pulls on a rag. The scene often looked like a snapshot of preschool. Another early childhood job was the clipping of the sharp points on their teeth, when feeding  their would bite the sows nipple causing infections and  sometimes causing the mother to reject them altogether. In order to counter bullying the piglets were graded for size on a weekly bases, this made sure each received the correct amount of food, every pig had it food requirement weigh each day. This was critical, as I wanted bacon pigs with minimum amount of fat, prime bacon only allows less than half inch. The piglets were weaned at four weeks, firstly to give mother a break. Secondly they seemed to make better progress on a high protein diet. Like many small things they are very fond of sugar, so this was not a difficult task.

With time I became quite apt at caring for pigs, attending to their various ailments from colds to mastitis. I really enjoyed the work, there was never a dull moment and great satisfaction in producing a first class product. Contrary to popular belief, pigs are very clean, they do the necessary in the same spot ever day ,which is more than can be said for some people I have known! Pigs are really more intelligent than dogs and it is not hard to see why some people like them as pets! There is an old saying that I love.

A cat looks down on you.
A dog looks up to you.
But only a pig treats you as a fellow human being.

The arrival of the pigs Coleamblly

Contented pigs.

As I drove down a pot-holed road, around bends, up hill and dale it never occurred to me what a commitment to a disease free piggery would turn out to be. Why disease free you ask, well a disease free pig is one bred by a quarantined breeder from foundation stock  born by Cesarean means, were the newly born piglet never comes into contact with the mother or any other pigs that have not started life in a similar manner. The reason being that the piglets  carry over no illness or bugs from the parent. I know this doesn't sound very nice , but the result is stock that grows into strong healthy animals.

On arrival at the outskirts of the piggery, some five miles or so from the highway gate, I was greeted by a high cyclone fence surmounted with barb wire topping. At first I thought I had stumbled onto some movie set were they were making another concentration camp film. A loud voice boomed out instructing me to first turn off the alarm by pushing a button and make contact with the inmates inside via the telephone near by. T I was then instructed to put on clean overalls provided in the cupboard, remove my shoes and replace them with  gum boots also in the cupboard. Then walk through a trough filled with heavens knows what and press a further button and wait.

Eventually someone appeared and escorted me through a few more decontamination units until we arrived at the piggery proper.This establishment breed what is called the " Super Pig". The owner claimed his animals grew into bacon pigs in 30  weeks. The Super pig has been developed from foundation stock of one half Large White, a very hardy pig with white bristles, apparently the public doesn't like blacks hairs on their bacon! Then there is one quarter Wessex Saddle Back [great mothers], they are the sows with a white strip around their tummies. Finally their is the Landrace, that long lean animal so much loved in Denmark. When you put these three breeds together you have one of the most productive pigs in the world. Mind you they are not cheap, but I had decided that after my experience in vegetable growing only the best would do.

Naturally I was not able to drive up to the piggery in my truck, so the stock of ten gilts and one boar were brought out to me. I decided to call the boar Romeo after a rather amorous settler in our district. I set off feeling very pleased with myself for the two hundred mile trip back home. The pig seemed contented sleeping on their pile of straw in the back. These pigs were going to have to pay for the vineyard development [see Pioneering in Australia blogs]. My research had suggested that the best results were obtained by mixing my own feed rather than purchasing commercial brands. Our farm was in a grain growing   belt, so I had obtained a hammer mill to crack the wheat which I would mix in a big bath with rice bran, meat and fish meal with any recommended vitamins, this was to be done with a shovel. This was fine at first for a few animals, but as numbers grew the task became a major problem.

A month or so earlier I had obtained some portable pig pens from a farm clearance sale which I had set up on a five acre paddock at the far end of the property [pig can have an unfortunate bouquet at times]. The breeding stock would free range. The paddock had plenty of trees for shade as pigs suffer from sunburn which is why they like to roll in the mud, I had even provide a dam for them to swim in, pigs do swim you know.

The first task was to unload them off the truck, as this was the first time I had ever had anything to do  with livestock, I attempted to encourage them down the rough log ramp I had built with food with little success. It was only then that I appreciated the true meaning of the expression pig headed, trying to push or pull a solid animal like a pig any where it does not want to go  is no laughing matter. Several hours later after much sweat and cursing ,I finally got them to leave their warm straw beds for their new home. As they had not been out in an open paddock before I decided to clematises them firstly in the pens for a day or two. Finally they were released out into the open and I would just have to wait and hope for a population
increase.

The pig paddock.

Trouble with Vegetables-Pioneering in Australia

Developing any fruit farm or permanent crop through cash cropping of vegetables is full of problems[ see blog Pioneering in 20th cent Australia]. Despite many years of effort, events outside of my control seemed to intervene . Weather, poor prices, excessive charges such as transport and plain dishonesty would raise their ugly heads. Unlike broad acre farming such as wheat and other cereal crops, or sheep raising where controlled prices and marketing structures are in place through Government agencies or co-operatives, vegetables were a free for all.

Often, after loading twenty tons of potatoes out in the paddock onto a truck without assistance, I would collapse from exhaustion. Generally this sort of activity would take place in the middle of the night in order to allow the truck driver sufficient time to drive the six hundred odd miles to the Sydney Markets. Even today many years later, my body still sufferers from the damage. The major cash crop we grew were potatoes [ in those days they were sold in 112lb bags] as our soils were sandy loam, when dug and washed, they looked like white billiard balls on the supermarket shelf and as such commanded top prices.

In order for you to understand how the market works, I shall detail the normal procedure. Firstly , I would phone my agent to ask the going price that day and then decide whether to consign a shipment. How ever, no matter what the price quoted or the actual price paid, I always received a lesser amount. The reason of course, I could not be there to check the auction prices and had to rely on the agent being honest. No paper work was required by law, the only requirement being that a consignment had to be paid for within five days of sale. Often I would find out that a load had sold at $12 per bag, but I would receive payment of $10. One year, when I had consigned several loads, but received no payment after many requests to the agent, I phoned the legal office of the Agriculture Department to lodge a complaint. The legal office is supposed to safe guard the interest of distant growers unable to attend. However, in this instant the officer informed me that because the agent had suggest a possible price, the crop did not qualify as a consigned in the legal terms of the act any more,  the agent was now acting in a commercial way and therefor was not obliged to pay within the time limit. This agent would sell several growers crops, not pay, then declare himself bankrupt, after transferring the money elsewhere. In this way he became a multi-millionaire,  he had carried out the exercises four times.I was advised to seek my own legal advice and sue the agent,which I could not afford to do, such is the concern of supposed Government bureaucrats looking after your interest. I often wondered how many boxes of whisky he received each Christmas. What was even more unbelievable, the same agent repeated the trick several times, but could always get his licence to sell back!

Then of course there was the Mafia control in the marketing and  packaging of vegetables in NSW. Griffith was notorious for much funny business and organised crime. While I lived there a well known political figure standing on a platform to clean up the town disappeared in the middle of a election campaign and apart from a little blood on the pavement was never seen again. Local wisdom used to claim bodies were feed to the pigs! In the end, I decided to replace vegetable growing with a small piggery, not for the above mentioned reasons I might add, but simply because I could deliver the them to the auction myself, receive the correct price with little trouble as the auction was only a two hour drive or so down the road. I shall tell you more about the amusing entertainment of pig farming in another blog. They love their toys and are very fond of music, but more of that another time!

Vintage 2011

Not only has it been a rough year in the vineyard, high rainfall , cloudy weather, mildew, but when we thought we may pick a few bunches what happens! Wasps, ( insect type not human) thousands of them, everything looked fine nice round bunches of grapes suddenly an attack of European wasps' .They swarmed from bunch to bunch pumping dry  every grape leaving but an empty shell. Whole rows just disappeared in a matter of hours. So who said growing crops was a piece of cake, But to end on a more positive note the sugar content was an unbelievable 22% sugar. I fear we shall have to drink the few bottles salvaged with great care lest we finish up like the proverbial Chinese sage in his tea house.