Queensland Cane Farmers Mark 100 Years of Fair Play

One hundred years ago, cane farmers across Queensland gathered in a Mackay schoolhouse with a simple mission: stop getting cheated by sugar mills. That meeting on January 21, 1926, created Canegrowers, an organization that remains the voice of Australia's sugar farmers a century later.

Before farmers united, mill owners controlled everything once cane left the farm. They negotiated prices on a first-come, first-served basis, creating massive inequality between regions. Growers had zero say in their own market.

"What was needed was fundamentally about equity," says current chairman Owen Menkens, a fourth-generation farmer. The organization gave scattered farmers collective power to negotiate fair prices and influence industry decisions that shaped their livelihoods.

The solidarity proved essential during tough times. In 1984, when global sugar prices crashed to a devastating 2.5 cents per pound, desperate farmers took to the streets of Brisbane and Townsville. Their unified protest caught government attention and secured a financial assistance package that saved the industry.

Michael Pisano, whose father obtained their Ingham farm through a returned soldier's scheme in 1950, spent 33 years as a Canegrowers representative. He remembers tense 1980s meetings where growers negotiated mandatory supply contracts with powerful mill owners. "Individual growers would never have been able to do that," he says. "We'd never have the power to lobby a government like that."

The Ripple Effect: That collective strength delivered a major victory in 2015 when the Sugar Industry Amendment Act passed, allowing growers to choose who marketed their sugar. The change fundamentally shifted power back to the people actually growing the cane. Today, Canegrowers supports 3,000 members across 14 regions in Queensland and New South Wales, protecting farmers through every season of fluctuating prices.

Menkens remains optimistic as his eldest son prepares to return to the family farm this year. His grandfather's words guide him: "You never really own the farm, you just look after it for the next generation." After a century of standing together, Australia's cane farmers are proving that when people unite for fairness, everyone grows stronger.