Northern Territory's largest tomato producer closes

Kalano Farm was the largest commercial tomato grower in the Northern Territory, producing about 150 tons a year. Now this tomato farm has shut its gates after falling into financial difficulty. The Indigenous-run Kalano Community Farm on the outskirts of Katherine had supplied local markets with tomatoes, sweet corn and capsicums for the past five years. It covered 67 hectares, produced up to 150 tons of tomatoes per year and employed six permanent workers.

The farm was promoted as an Indigenous success story by federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion and was visited by Governor-General Peter Cosgrove in 2014. However, Kalano Community Association chief executive Graham Castine said the farm had not been turning a profit. So the decision was made to close it last month.

"The Kalano council has been putting in a considerable amount of its own untied money into the operational costs of the farm, and unfortunately the income from the sales of the farm's produce no way near match [the operational costs]," Castine said.

The farm's small cashflow window, with the main crop of tomatoes only having a harvest window of about 20 weeks of the year, was a factor in the closure.
"The decision to concentrate on tomatoes and the amount of area under cultivation for tomatoes was the killer, and the high costs of maintaining the input was disastrous," Castine said.

As reported by abc.net.au, funding from the Indigenous Land Corporation for Kalano Farm's wages came to an end this year, which put further pressure on the farm's bottom line.