Majura Valley farmers on the future
Majura Valley farmers outline what they would like to do with their land if they secured a lease from the government - something they had been trying to do for nearly 20 years
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00:00I think if we secured our lease, we put our business plan into place.
00:05Our business plan was an extension of the Majura Bush Festival, where we'd run the farm
00:14every day and open it to the public so they could enjoy the same experience as we do every
00:21day working on the farm.
00:22We had the lease again. Sheep grazing is a big thing and long-term cropping has loosened.
00:31This is a seven-year period and at the moment we don't have the opportunity to do that.
00:36I'm Anne McGrath from Majura Valley Free Range Eggs. We just want to continue the practices
00:41we have on our farm, which is egg production and lambs, cattle, and we want to grow our
00:50agriculture business with more horticulture. We already do corn and a market garden.
00:57We want to develop our milk sheep dairy where the community can come and see the sheep being
01:04milked. It's a very rare thing throughout Australia.
01:07The other thing is really important to us is to look after the environment.
01:11Looking after the environment, we've been doing it for 25 years without a lease.
01:16We're doing a good job, but we think we can do better when we've got security.
01:20The other main thing for us is that financial security. At any time without a lease, the
01:25government can come and take the land and we get zero for the land. We only get paid
01:30for improvements. My family want to grow and they want to start their own families.
01:36It's really, really hard to deal with the banks when we don't have a lease.
01:44We continue to do as we're doing, raise beef, cattle, horses, breeding horses, hay.
01:52Also, part of the idea was to have an area where people come out and horse ride.
02:03Disabled people and people similar to the Pegasus style of riding in a safe environment.
02:13Just because it's such a relaxing spot to be. We've been five minutes of the city,
02:19yet we've got country living. There's no town water, there's no sewerage, there's no
02:29rubbish pick up, so you've got to do everything yourself. It's like living out in the back
02:34of Bourke, but in the centre of Canberra.
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