We need to talk about the northwest

Featured in

  • Published 20130305
  • ISBN: 9781922079961
  • Extent: 264 pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

IT HAD BEEN raining the first time I visited far northwest Tasmania. Which isn’t unusual. Rain, that often-fickle decider of rural fate, falls regularly and in volume on this little corner of the world. It can be a challenge for all farmers, too much rain, especially the free-range pig farmers who, like me, try to paddock-rear their livestock from birth to the cutting shop.

But this rain is a gift. It’s clean rain. It falls through what has been recorded to be the cleanest air in the world. This rain falls mostly on loam, a fertile, free-draining type of soil that simply grows stuff better. And it falls even in dry times that bring drought elsewhere in the state and country.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

Finding the fundamentals of culture

MemoirValuing a job that creates something tangible is probably why, on leaving school, I opted to become a chef; I liked the idea of making food, and hopefully making people happy. It’s probably why I farm, because doing something physical, to produce something you can actually touch, is wired into me.

More from this edition

Across the Bass Strait

FictionMum was sitting by herself on a bench attached to the wall of the ship under a Perspex roof. We sat next to her holding on to the bottom of the bench. I told Mum that I had been sick and she wiped my forehead and cheek and said, 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,' and it looked like she was crying. She said it was just the sea spray and the cold. And it was cold. It was freezing and the wind cut into my back like I had no skin at all. I could hear the water crack against the ship, feel it hit then hear the spray shoot up. Only I couldn't see it. I couldn't see anything past the light cast out on the deck. Out there the world was raging in the blackness.

Outside looking in

MemoirI QUITE LIKED living on the periphery when I was growing up in Tasmania and I quite like living on the periphery now. Where...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.