Once again seasonal conditions are causing a great deal of stress across agricultural regions. This highlights to me, the urgent need for new and diversified farming enterprises. New systems that can help to smooth out the troughs left in our finances by all of the seasonal anomalies that nature continually throws at primary producers.

Oil Mallees have the potential to make an impact on financial security in the tough years because, as deep rooted woody perennials they do not suffer yield penalties from seasonal variations to anywhere near the same degree as do our annual crops and pastures.

The Oil Mallee Company has been working hard to promote the attributes of mallees to a number of large international companies. The aim is to inject large amounts of capital into integrated plantings, in order to bring the tree resource up to an economic level, at a much faster rate. The mallees ability to lock carbon away in the mallee root and to be able to “crop” the aboveground stems in a regular harvest program makes it quite unique as a species. This, together with the fact that mallees have adapted to low rainfall zones and thus relatively low land values, makes an interesting equation for companies in need of energy and/or carbon credits.

Oil Mallees have the potential to diversify your income stream, reduce impacts from seasonal anomalies, have a positive landcare effect and are very low maintenance.

Together these all make a pretty good argument for the widespread adoption of the humble mallee!

The transition from the OMA to the OMC running the seedling pipeline etc seems to have worked well. Nurseries are on target with seedling supply and from all reports quality is excellent. I am sure the QA system now in place has impacted in a very positive way.

Some of the best news is the announcement that the 1 million seedling Metasource planting is going ahead in the Esperance region. This is all totally new ground for the industry and could form the framework for both landowner and investor plantings in other areas of the state.

The Integrated Wood Processing project is progressing in the Narrogin region. Western Power is in the process of purchasing a 1-megawatt steam turbine and site plans etc are under development. Plans are for the commissioning of the IWP plant in mid 2002.

We can all hope that by the time "The Dinkum Oil" reaches your mailboxes significant falls of rain have made it across the Wheatbelt and that some sort of season can be salvaged for most people.