With mill closure looming, Mossman sugarcane farmers face a lost harvest and uncertain future

Kate Padovan (centre) is worried about the future of sugar farming families in the town. (ABC Far North: Bridget Herrmann)

In her Mossman home surrounded by sugarcane fields, Kate Padovan is studying for her university degree in primary education.

The fourth-generation cane farmer had planned for a life working on the farm.

But with the town’s sugar mill and major employer likely to close, she has to find an alternative.

“It was just the uncertainty for so many years of what the mill was going to do that I’m really glad my family encouraged me to go and get a degree because now I have stability behind me,” she says.

Ms Padovan, 21, is no stranger to the importance of sugar to the town’s economy.

She has driven cane trains for the past three years, moving harvested sugarcane from the paddocks to the mill as part of an all-female team of workers under the age of 22.

“As a young person it’s so hard to find a job in Mossman because all the jobs are taken and I feel like, without any experience … you don’t really stand a chance,” she says.

“That’s why the mill was such a great opportunity for young people because it was seasonal work, but there were like 100 seasonal jobs that you could fill in.”

Money in the ground

Ms Padovan says farmers need help to get this year’s cane harvested after the mill unexpectedly went into voluntary administration last November.

Growers had been reassured just months earlier by mill operator Far Northern Milling that the facility would be operating in 2024.

So, the growers went ahead and planted cane for the year.

“The rug just got ripped from under all our feet and we need help,” Ms Padovan says.

“The farmers have no idea what they’re going to do — their money is in the crop in the ground.”

Spending fears

Over at the Padovan farm sheds, Ms Padovan’s grandfather Richard is planning some small maintenance jobs for the day with the one worker he has retained.

He should be preparing for harvest but with no word from the mill or government on harvest support, he is playing it safe in case his crop stays in the ground.

“We’ve been marking time for the last three months because we’re scared to spend too much money,” he says.

But playing safe has its problems too.

He is left with less time to spray for weeds and service machinery should the harvest go ahead.

At a neighbouring farm, third-generation grower Scott Fasano has also stopped farm work until he can confirm any government support.

“We are in a situation where we’ve got a crop of sugarcane sitting in the paddock and nowhere to send it,” he says.

He says confirmation from the government in mid-April would have been ideal.

Instead, he says he will likely be looking for another job soon.

“We need to know in another week or two at the maximum what the government has got planned to help us get this crop off,” he says.

“If it looks like it’s going to stay in the paddock, well, you’ve just got to walk away — there’s nothing you can do.

“Walk away and have the hard meeting with the bank manager.”

Mr Fasano wants the Queensland government to help subsidise the cost of sending the cane to be processed at the nearest available mill.

That is MSF Sugar’s Mulgrave mill south of Cairns, about 100 kilometres away.

It will cost growers an extra $30 per tonne to freight the cane and, with more than 310,000 tonnes of cane in Mossman, they say the cost will quickly add up to more than $9 million.

“You may as well just leave it in the paddock because you’ll be going backwards,” Mr Fasano says.

“To not get any return at all from it you’re financially ruined, you just can’t come back from that.”

He and other growers also want the capital from this year’s crop so that they can focus on diversifying into other crops for next year.

The other option is finding work elsewhere.

“I don’t think we’ll see the full impacts for two years, people start leaving town slowly and the flow-on effects, it’s going to be massive for Mossman,” he says.

Canegrowers Mossman manager Evelyn Matthews says her advocacy group is meeting with the state government and milling company MSF Sugar to get the potential crop harvested.

She says negotiations are ongoing.

Put money into mill’s future instead

The Mossman sugar mill had struggled to remain viable for years with aging infrastructure and a finite amount of cane-producing land available.

Local farmers banded together to buy the mill in 2018.

They became one of the first grower cooperatives to own a mill in Australia.

The state and federal government pitched in $45 million to help the mill find a new future in by-products of sugar production, such as biofuel for aviation.

But the mill went into voluntary administration before any alternatives were made feasible.

Growers Joe and Carmel Raldini say instead of freight subsidies, they want to funnel government funds or other help into realising the mill’s by-product future and keep cane growing in the town.

“From the heart, I want Mossman to keep going,” Mr Raldini says.

He said when alternative fuel companies showed interest, the government could remove barriers to support the new industry.

Historically high sugar prices are a strong basis to push ahead with the abandoned plan, Mr Raldini believes.

“We can capitalise on the good price and the future that there is in alternative products,” he says.

The Raldinis are preparing for the potential harvest but say it is a stressful choice that has them “just praying that something happens”.

They say the alternative would leave them in a tight spot.

“Unemployed with a debt to pay like everyone else,” Carmel Raldini says.

‘Forgotten world’

Families such as the Padovans, Fasanos, and Raldinis have farmed cane for generations in Mossman and their history is linked with that of the town’s.

They are heartbroken that decades of work may be left to rot.

“We’re like a forgotten world up here at the moment,” Mr Fasano says.

“What do they think of us down there in Brisbane? We’re a small community up here.”

In March, the Queensland government announced the $12.1 million Mossman Region Transition Program.

A government spokesperson says a significant proportion of the funding will be spent on helping growers and workers diversify and retrain.

They say the government has continued to meet with grower representatives and that it recognises the significant impact the mill’s closure will have on growers, mill workers and the broader community.