Academic literature on the topic 'Canegrowers'

The Queensland sugar industry between 1880 and 1950 faced a major agricultural crisis. The annual cane crops were attacked periodically by white grubs, the larvae of different species of native beetles found along the Queensland coast. Both canegrower and miller suffered considerable financial losses during these outbreaks. Entomologists engaged by the Queensland Government sought strategies to reduce this damage. This paper begins by discussing the biology of the beetles that troubled the Queensland sugar industry. The organizations and personalities involved in the research to combat the depredation by the white grubs are outlined in the second part of this paper. The extent of the canegrowers' adoption of the entomologists' advice on ways to reduce the impact of white grubs is reviewed in the third section of this paper. In the final section, the solution to the canegrowers' woes is discussed, although it will be highlighted that the widespread adoption of benzene hexachloride in the 1950s only provided protection until the Queensland Government banned the use of this insecticide in 1987.

Abstract Sugarcane emerged by 1884 as the most favored crop cultivated in the coastal lands of Eastern Australia between Cairns and Grafton. Initially, Australian canegrowers invested as little labor and capital as possible. Contemporary commentators, however, were very critical of the agricultural practices adopted by the country’s first canegrowers, noting a lack of careful cultivation and plowing, fertilizer use, drainage, and paddock design. Various reasons for the use of these "inadequate techniques" are discussed in this essay, with the conclusion being offered that the most important factor was a lack of scientific knowledge about farming under Australian conditions. By 1891 cane-growing techniques were reported to be "on the upgrade," with improved cane and sugar yields. Such a transformation had commenced due to the introduction of some mechanization and the dissemination of research findings and technical information about scientific cultivation methods under Australian conditions. This detail had been assembled during the 1890s and 1900s mainly by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company and the Queensland government Sugar Experiment Stations, which had been established following pressure from canegrowers who increasingly sought advice on the correct farming methods.

ABSTRACTThis paper uses data from a survey of women involved in the Australian sugar industry to present evidence of the strategies which could be introduced by agri-political groups to increase women's involvement in agricultural leadership. Of the 181 positions of elected leadership in the Australian sugar industry's agri-political group, CANEGROWERS, none is held by a woman. Factor analysis of the 233 returned survey responses revealed that there are five types of strategies that could be implemented to address this inequity. These are: organisational strategies, education and training strategies, remuneration strategies, support strategies and practical strategies. The paper concludes by drawing attention to the fact that few strategies have been adopted by agricultural organizations to address men's numerical dominance of positions of leadership.

ABSTRACTThis paper uses data from a survey of women involved in the Australian sugar industry to present evidence of the strategies which could be introduced by agri-political groups to increase women's involvement in agricultural leadership. Of the 181 positions of elected leadership in the Australian sugar industry's agri-political group, CANEGROWERS, none is held by a woman. Factor analysis of the 233 returned survey responses revealed that there are five types of strategies that could be implemented to address this inequity. These are: organisational strategies, education and training strategies, remuneration strategies, support strategies and practical strategies. The paper concludes by drawing attention to the fact that few strategies have been adopted by agricultural organizations to address men's numerical dominance of positions of leadership.

Trash conservation measures associated with burnt and green harvested cane, and minimum tillage, are being adopted by canegrowers. These new management systems pose questions about how to apply N fertilizers. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficiency of fertilizer N uptake by the crop. Urea, labelled with 15N , was either broadcast or buried in three trash management systems: with and without trash after harvesting cane burnt, and with trash after harvesting cane green. The proportion of applied fertilizer-N recovered in a cane crop was 33% when labelled urea was buried, and 18% when broadcast. The presence of trash mulches from burnt or green harvested cane had negligible effects on the uptake of fertilizer-N. Of fertilizer-N applied, 25% was detected in soil 12 months after application, and there was no difference between burying and broadcasting urea. The fate of the lost fertilizer-N was not determined. Leaching did not appear to be a significant loss process in this gleyed podzolic soil, but ammonia volatilization probably occurred when urea was broadcast and it is suspected that denitrification accounted for the majority of the fertilizer-N losses.

Current strategies for phosphorus (P) fertiliser management in the Australian sugar industry do not account for the differences between different soils in their ability to sorb and release P. However, the off-site export of P from land under sugarcane has been shown to be a major factor contributing to elevated concentrations of P in stream waters draining catchments dominated by sugarcane production. This paper presents the results of a study conducted in the lower part of the catchment of the Herbert River, north Queensland, a major sugarcane growing region. Our approach was to combine a knowledge of P sorption by soil and riverine sediments with an assessment of the risk of P loss from lower Herbert sugarcane soils and knowledge of the requirements of sugarcane for P. The results provide a basis for future P fertiliser management by canegrowers which accounts for both production and environmental imperatives. They also point to an urgent need for experimentation, based on rundown of soil P fertility, to determine critical soil test values in soils of varying P sorption, and provide a useful regional framework for the design of such experimentation.

During the course of the Twentieth Century the Australian sugar industry became increasingly regulated to such an extent that by the 1980s it was the most highly regulated industry in Australia. Since the 1980s pressures, both internal and external to the industry, have resulted in significant deregulation and subsequent restructuring.

Internal pressures have resulted from the Australian government's adoption of economic rationalist polices in order to meet what it perceived to be the challenges of globalisation, as well as more localized factors such as prolonged periods of drought. Externally, declining terms of trade and increasing levels of competition are problematic.

This thesis seeks to determine whether or not the Australian sugar industry's restructuring exercises are sufficient to meet the challenges presented by an increasingly globalised economy and fiercer international competition. In so doing it considers the role of the state and transnational capital. It also reflects upon the sustainability of the industry.

In order to understand what is happening within the Australian sugar industry, the thesis engages the explanatory power of agricultural restructuring and globalization theory. Theoretically the thesis is informed but not determined by the globalization perspective developed by Le Heron (1993). It also incorporates insights derived from McMichael, Wiseman, and Lawrence. The thesis employs methodology derived from the combination of two different but complementary procedures, namely, commodity systems analysis as proposed and refined by Friedland (1984, 2001), and the commodity chain approach as described by Hopkins and Wallerstein (1986).

The thesis concludes that while the Australian industry appears to be deregulating and restructuring according to global logic, if fully enacted according to the trajectory implied by the deregulatory process, some portions of the Australian industry may be rendered unsustainable.