The Rich Aroma Of Vision
Illawarra Mercury
Saturday February 26, 2000
CHARLES de Kantzow was so steamed up about the Shoalhaven's high youth unemployment rate when he moved to Berry two years ago that he decided to start new industries to create jobs.
Now he is part of a push to establish a coffee production industry in the region.
``The Illawarra and Shoalhaven have an abominable number of unemployed young people," Charles said.
``I came down from Darwin where the youth unemployment rate was 4.6 per cent," he said. ``Down here it was 40-odd.
``I was appalled at the unemployment rate and the laxity of people trying to create new industries.
``My aim was to create 1000 jobs in six years."
Charles hawked his ideas around various government departments ``making a nuisance" of himself. ``I also told a few politicians what I thought of them," he said.
After securing help from the NSW State and Regional Development Department and the Shoalhaven Consultative Committee, Charles and his colleagues applied for and were given a research grant from the Federal Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business Department.
Now coffee plantations are springing up on farms around Berry, Shoalhaven Heads with others to be planted at Cambewarra, Brown Mountain and Nowra Hill.
Charles - who used to grow coffee and tea in Papua New Guinea - has produced a training manual and has germinated about 5000 seedlings in his suburban backyard.
``And that's only the start," he said.
He's got plenty of ideas for other industries percolating away.
Coffee traditionally is grown at high altitude in tropical countries, but the further away you get from the equator, the lower the altitude can be, he said.
``This area up to Albion Park is ideal for coffee," Charles said. ``Foxground is perfect.
``The rain is excellent, the soil is good, we can control the frost and the wind by planting windbreaks. And coffee likes misty, moisty mornings.
``The colder it is the more coffee acid is in the bean and the stronger the favour. This is our advantage."
``We've got people all over the place connected with coffee," he said, including one colleague who spent six years in Kenya growing coffee and holds tertiary qualifications in horticulture.
Phil and Tina Ballard, who own Fern Grove Simmental cattle stud near Berry, have already planted 2500 coffee bushes and plan to plant another 7500 next year.
They have diversified because of the drop in the beef market.
When it is fully operational, they hope to provide 11/2 full-time jobs and four to five part-time jobs at Fern Grove alone.
There will be work planting, maintaining, harvesting, processing and drying: everything from growing the bushes to making the coffee.
Phil said he hoped to tap into the tourist trade, adding coffee-tasting to the wine-tasting circuit.
``A new crop is always good to be the first in," Phil said. ``It's a risk but also the opportunity is there. If you don't take the risk, you don't get anywhere."
© 2000 Illawarra Mercury