Wheat Plans For

Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island's new Admini strator, Mr. Roger Nott, believes that wheat production can become an important factor in the island's economy by building up pig and poultry production.

MR. NOTT, who has his own farm in NSW, plans to per sonally import two tons of seed wheat, and he will plant about 10 acres at Steele’s Point, an area long regarded as the most fertile, arable land on the island.

Wheat cultivation on Norfolk dates back to 1788, when Lieut.

P. G. King sowed three quarts of this grain a month after he arrived to found the island’s first settlement.

By 1801 there were 374 acres in cultivation.

Wheat was also grown extensively during the second settlement, when the authorities had a large convict labour-force at their command.

Last year a Norfolk Islander, Alan Buffett, planted nine acres of wheat and harvested about seven bags to the acre. Another islander, Eric Adams, received a good return from one acre.

If produced in sufficient quantities wheat could be the means of re viving pig and poultry production.

At present all grains are imported and the high cost of importing makes pig and poultry farming a low profit

proposition.

This plan comes at a time when the bean seed industry, which for many years has been Norfolk’s main export industry, is in the doldrums.

In 1963 only 109 acres of beans were planted and in 1964 the number dropped to 34. Owing to the incidence of the disease “Halo Blight” and the difficulty experienced in competing with the bean seed grown in the Queensland Burdekin Valley, the growing and exporting of seed has become an uneconomic pro position for Norfolk farmers.

Since his arrival, Mr. Nott has been taking a close interest in general agricultural development on Norfolk.

In November he began a stock census of the island, which he said was necessary if the island was to get better production of meat and poultry for an increasing population, including an increasing number of tourists.