The Ord pushes ahead future production

The Ord region in the East Kimberley area of Western Australia is made headlines recently with success of its Expansion project. The project has identified “significant parcels of land” and plans to release 8,000 hectares, for future farm production. Peter Stubbs, director of the Ord East Kimberley Expansion project said it will help broaden the economic base of the region and, providing infrastructure issues have been resolved it is hoped to bring the extra land to market around mid 2011.

This news comes following the success of the super food Chia farmed on 2,000 hectares of land in the Ord Valley.

at a time when farmers in the Ord region are preparing to harvest WA’s first commercial rice crop in more that 27 years.

The Ord River irrigation area rice crops in the East Kimberley were planted by growers associated with Australian rice food company SunRice. The crops were planted between March and April this year and the current harvest is expected to deliver between eight to 10 tonnes per hectare of rice.

Brendon Grylls, Regional Development and Lands Minister, who visited Kununurra to watch the harvest operations in July and said it was an exciting time for farmers in the region. The rice would be stored in the Kununurra area before being exported overseas from the port of Wyndham on the North coast.

It was envisaged up to 1,000ha of rice could be planted next year as the emerging rice industry bulked up in the lead-up to the release of the new agricultural blocks. Agriculture and Food Minister Terry Redman said rice had the potential to be a major cash crop for the Ord region.

One of the other big success stories for the reason has been the wonder seed Chia which has recently had European Food Safety Authority approval to be sold within the EEA.

“That opens up a big, lucrative market for us, particularly because part of the European culture is the consumption of grainy and seedy bread. We believe it will be a $20 million industry in the next 5 years," John Foss, managing director of The Chia Company told the ABC recently.

The success of these crops will mean further investment in the Ord valley which in turn will mean jobs for the region.