Exotic fruit pioneer to industry leader
North Queensland lychee and rambutan farmer Andre Leu, helped pioneer the Australian exotic fruit industry and develop stable marketing systems prior to taking on leadership positions in national and international organic organizations.
The tropical fruit farmer is now president of the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM) and Chair of the Organic Federation of Australia (OFA).
Andre had just arrived back to his Daintree farm from Europe and Asia when he drew breath to outline how this busy interstate and international schedule had forced a temporary close-down with his own farm production.
“These positions entail a lot of travel, so I’ve had to put the farm on hold for the time being.
“It’s just basic maintenance at the moment so as I can start up again when need be.
Andre had considered the positives together with the negatives in the daunting decision to put the farm on hold while he took on the challenges of working with international industry bodies.
“It’s alright for the time being as it’s not often your colleagues give you the opportunity to represent them but it was a tough decision.
“I wasn’t able to find the skills locally that I need to keep the fruitpicking and marketing running smoothly and my wife Julia, who has always been involved as a manager, now has a busy lifestyle as a local government councillor.
“We’ve always worked on quality systems and if I’m not here to supervise the picking and the packing the quality of the product is soon lost and then we lose money,” he said.
Andre’s decision to put industry associations first and allow the fruit to wither on the vine for the time being, espouses his overall philosophy “to only produce and sell top quality product”.
Andre Leu has learned well the tricks of the local and overseas marketing trade.
“All farmers can grow but you need to ensure you sell your products with sufficient profit to make money at the end of the year.
“I’ve always worked with grower marketing groups starting with the FNQ Lychee Growers Association”, he said.
“I’m a great believer the most effective growers can obtain a premium by working together and marketing together.”
Andre Leu explains that Australian producers had only a small window of opportunity in the market due to labour costs.
“Our high dollar will now make us even less competitive with the high dollar, high labour and high transport costs making it difficult to compete against the low cost countries.
“The answer for us is to obtain a premium price for growing for the top of the market. Nowadays the biggest premium is for organics, there’s a market for organic that’s not there for conventional.
“The other key to market success is quality control with harvesting, packaging and transport.
“The critical thing is to consistently deliver consistent good product,” Andre stressed.
Andre Leu says for many years he was the sole North Queensland organic lychee producer.
“Here on the farm I’ve planted a whole selection of exotic fruit but have concentrated on the ones that make money, rambutans, lychees, star apples and a few durians and mangosteens.
“I’ve been marketing rambutans with other rambutan growers as a group. We were selling to Japan and around Australia.
“Australia has always been a major exporter of primary industries ever since John Macarthur brought in merino sheep in 1790.
‘This whole thing about the carbon footprint of food miles
is a big furphy’ - Andre
Andre debunks the controversial theory in regard to the negative impact of food miles.
“This whole thing about the carbon footprint of food miles is a big furphy. The amount of greenhouse gases used in transporting a product is a small fraction to the proportion used in production. When you do the life cycle analysis of growing systems, local is not always best,” he said.
Lincoln University study
Andre explained that the science has shown it is better for the environment to buy an organic product than a conventional one.
“A study from Lincoln University, New Zealand, indicates it would be better for the environment if the UK air-freighted all fresh organic fruit every day from New Zealand rather than to grow conventionally in the UK. The use of hot houses and synthetic fertilizers requires the burning of a lot of fossil fuels,” he said.
Andre’s marketing philosophy ‘one size doesn’t fit all’ or to use the great old Aussie farming motto ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ ties in with smart new marketing ideology, ‘good business is all about spreading the risk’.
“In terms of production systems I tried selling my fruit locally and like many other rural producers found there weren’t enough local communities big enough to support us.”
Andre’s marketing strategy then moved to selling across the board so as there were always three available markets, local, interstate or overseas.
“You need the flexibility to spread the risk and for the organic industry the critical thing is to think strategically and long term.”
Andre and Julia Leu pioneered Australia’s first exotic fruit nursery at Kuranda with Alan and Susan Carle of the renowned Botanical Ark, Mossman, FNQ, in 1977.
“In 1975 I went to Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and introduced 20 new fruits to Australia,” Andre said.
He still travels regularly to South East Asia collecting tropical and endangered species which return to the Daintree Tropical Fruit Orchard.
The Leu farm north of Mossman, houses one of the nation’s most comprehensive bamboo collections and the world’s best Australian native water lily collection as well as the commercial rambutan and lychee orchards which have about 1,000 lychees and more than 600 rambutans.
Only 12 hectares of the picturesque 64 hectare property bordered on three sides by World Heritage is under orchard with the remainder high diversity regrowth rainforest.
The transition from a conventional farming system to this Leu masterpiece in ecological systems approach is ongoing. Andre works on a philosophy of continuous improvement.
Overgrown cane drains have been ponded and planted with the aim of functional biodiversity. Twenty species of taro, including endemics for a future gene pool if needed, help rid the property of para grass.
He has a special affinity with bamboo, with 100 species growing prolifically. Guadua bamboo, which grows to 30 metres, is used in South America for multi-storey construction, and Betung, the all-purpose bamboo, shelters the rapidly regenerating cane drains cum tranquil forest pools. This innovative regeneration process has also reintroduced wildlife including two species of native turtle, goannas, the riflebird, the buff breasted kingfisher, and the platypus.
New Chinese lychee varieties are being trialled in one section of the orchard with innovative grafting an integral part of the orcharding procedure.
The essence of the successful Leu soil science philosophy is to create as much organic matter as possible.
“I’m aiming to maximize photosynthesis, trapping sunlight that my crop doesn’t use to create organic matter that feeds the farming system.
“Photosynthesis creates the
basis of organic molecules which are the building blocks of nature.”
The FNQ farmer and other sustainable farming colleagues aim to manage weeds to benefit their crop rather than eradication.
“Properly managed ground covers increase our fertility and help with pest management. We need a little bit of pest as food for the predator.
“I strip mow and have refuge areas with flowering groundcover plants that are hosts to the beneficial insects which control pests. If I mow the lot, I turn it into an ecological desert.”
Andre explains, as he examines the balance of pests nesting in lychee leaves, that properly managed groundcovers or insectaries increase his soil fertility putting in organic matter and in the case of legumes supplying free soil nitrogen.
“We’re bringing in an ecological systems approach to get those environmental and production outcomes.”
He said the subtle balance between ‘beneficials’ and pest insects was working well.
“I’ve never had to spray my rambutans and only occasionally the lychees, and for mites we use a naturally occurring mineral sulphur.
Andre believes that by using less fossil fuel organic growers put out less carbon dioxide than conventional agricultural methods.
“Secondly organic
science
takes
‘Fundamentally, the industry is creating stable soil for carbon’
carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and locks it back into the soil. Fundamentally, the industry is creating stable soil for carbon.”
On his Daintree property Andre estimates that in a 12 year period of sustainable orcharding using photosynthesis and groundcovers he has put well over 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide back into the soil.
“If we transcribe this to national and international levels, good farming compost science has made a considerable contribution to climate change reversal,” said Andre.
“According to the Rodale Institute in the US, American agriculture as it is currently practiced emits a total of 1.5 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide annually.
“Converting US crop land to organics would not only wipe out agriculture’s massive emissions problem by eliminating energy costly chemical fertilizer, it would give a net increase in soil carbon of 734 billion pounds.”
Andre optimistically views organics, the world’s largest growing agricultural sector, as a positive grass roots aid to the greenhouse predicament.
Walking through his Garden of Eden styled property he explains how turning atmospheric carbon dioxide into soil, organic material will reverse climate change.
“Agriculture could learn from organic farmers, the most effective ways of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and into the soil,” he said as we wander through his lush farm. “Organics is acknowledged as a good news story in looking after the environment and consumer health.
“It was time this agricultural sector was rewarded for good land management practices with 25 per cent of Australian greenhouse gases created by agriculture, an organic farm could make a significant contribution to reversing this percentage.”
Andre and Julia Leu’s venture into biodiversity in the bosom of the Daintree wilderness is firmly based on ecological science to redesign Australian farming culture for the mutual benefit of man and nature.
For the dynamic academic agriculturalist time is as precious as the sweet smelling, well nurtured and composted soil that he sifts, almost reverently, through his fingers.
As chair of the OFA and IFOAM President, Andre Leu is highly sought after as a speaker, due in part to his hands-on inspirational rural success story. There is only the occasional week that he is not away from home.
“The OFA has evolved from grass roots level, supplying the need for a unifying body. Governments don’t like mixed messages and we’ve built a mature relationship which stands us in good stead for the future. Organics is now accepted as an integral part of agriculture.”