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It's the beginning of another hot day in Numbulwar in remote East Arnhem Land.
This idyllic place is deceptive. While they've been reaping the harvest from the sea here
for centuries on the land, it's not so easy to grow food. But all this is about to change.
Right, Anthony, this is a PH tester. Bob and his offsider Anthony are pioneers
in the brave new world of tropical hydroponics. I'm proud of myself, making myself good and
working too, you know, real hard. Lying on the Gulf of Carpentaria, Numbulwar
is a very hot place to live. The community is built on sandy soil, making it a tall order
to grow anything, especially fresh vegies. A task that gets even more difficult as you
travel inland to surrounding outstations. It's still not
And even with all this high tech infrastructure, out here, people like Moses won't be self
sufficient, until they can grow their own food.
If people are doing shopping in town they have to call Homelands to come and pick them
up. Maybe Bob or Wilfred.
And for Moses that means a 60 kilometre trip to town just to buy vegies.
That's why he's spending the day in town at the Homelands shed, to learn more about hydroponics.
Hello. We want to start growing all those vegetables
in the outstations and sell the food back to this settlement.
Because of this community initiative, Bob set up a trial hydroponics green house in
his own backyard. And look at the results after just four months.
Broccoli's going good, as you can see plenty of tomatoes, you have eggplants still going,
this is zucchini, they go really well here. And you have cucumber and radish that's ready.
Chillies here - quite hot. I don't have to buy any vegies from the shop and there is
no reason why it couldn't work on the outstations. People have to be involved and they'd have
to be trained. And that's exactly why everyone's here, to
see how hydroponics works. Well we're going to put the pots up today,
we're going to put the pipes in, hook it up to the tank, put the perlite in and hopefully
put some plants in. Put them in like this one here all along there.
Yep, I'll show you mob first. Here, up this way.
Only five weeks ago Anthony knew nothing about hydroponics know he's teaching the others
how to do it. Put it up here come here
This is the bucket the perlite goes in that the plants grow in. It's got holes in the
bottom which are drainage holes and goes into this one and it will drain through here hooked
up all the way. I'll have to learn something.
This system is simple. A 2000 litre tank holding water and plant nutrients, a pump pushing
water to the plants and draining through perlite into a second pot and back into the tank to
be reused. And all that housed in a 10 x 6 metre greenhouse
that anyone can build. This is the main feeder line
Now all that's left is to cut some pipe prick a hole and push on some feeder hose.
So far, no leaks. One final check by Anthony and they're ready
to go. Let's fill it up with perlite, eh?
This one? Perlite is a reusable medium that plant live
in. Soils got bacteria and weeds and all that
sort of stuff in it. This stuff is inert. Once you've spent the money to get the kit
set up, you could virtually leave it like that for two years.
And after only 5 weeks their first tomato plants are ready to bear fruit.
You'll be able to take all those fruits and eat them, its more fresh, you know.
Fresh food, you'll be able to start up your own markets. Fresh food markets.
This community could soon be supplying their own fresh vegetable if this hydroponics initiative
spreads to outstations. We might sell the food back to this settlement
or any other settlement. And to realise Henry's dream Homelands Resource
Centre will need to keep the roads to the outstations in good order.
It's very important, eh, for Aboriginal people, they want to go out to their outstations and
that, hunting and camping, take the young kids out and teach them bush life. And the
only way to do that is to have good roads going out there.
Something Moses is thankful for as he heads back home after a long day to talk with Anthony
about setting up his own hydroponics system. I am thinking about growing the hydroponics
garden over there in that area. The grader will come and remove the trees.
You want to put them there Yeah.
Somewhere over there you might want to grow a melon, maybe mangos. So that when you are
hungry you can eat from there. Instead of going to the shop, eh.
That's right. Instead of spending money at the shop, you can grow your own food to eat
right here. Yeah.
And that's exactly what Bob had in mind when he got into hydroponics.
You eat something out of this every night. They're the best tomatoes in Numbulwar mate.
I like to keep growing more you know, and keep working with people just taking it to
the outstations so they can grow it up themselves. We should encourage other people other communities
to grow up plants, fresh vegetables and everything, so you can get a healthy community, healthy
lifestyle.