WHAT A BUNCH OF GALAHS

WE were driving into Strathmore Station northwest of Georgetown last week when I noticed a massive pile of red dirt on a pad. I was wondering what it was all about. Later, while waiting for manager Charlie Pedersen, I got talking to Mick, the helicopter pilot. I asked him about the red dirt. “That’s not red dirt, that’s sorghum,” he said. We were at Strathmore to do a story on the massive sorghum and cotton growing project under way. Fifty- five thousand hectares of land on the one million hectare station is gradually being developed for farming. It’s not well known, but it’s the single biggest agricultural project under way in Northern Australia at this time. In Queensland it is the biggest agricultural development since the Burdekin River Irrigation Scheme in the 198090s. When we drove out to the crop sites later that day with Charlie we were amazed at the number of galahs feeding on the sorghum.

“What can you do to stop them eating the crop?” I asked Charlie.

He laughed, holding on to the wheel of the 4WD as we bounced over the station track: “We just plant extra for them.”

Later when we were heading back out to the Croydon road we drove over and had a look at the mountain of harvested sorghum.

As we got closer we could see it was covered with galahs. They were gorging themselves on the harvested grain. Thousands and thousands of them.

It was a spectacle to behold. But it will end soon. Plans are afoot to cover the sorghum stockpile with tarpaulins. The grain here is transported 440km to the Atherton Tableland where it is used to fatten Steggles chickens. It’s a pioneering agricultural project out on the state’s farming frontier that is already contributing to the food supply chain, galahs included.