resilience and shared investment
Queensland cane growing has never been insulated from disruption. Across a century, growers have operated under recurring pressure – extreme weather, labour shortages, volatile markets and structural change – that no individual business could absorb alone.
Floods, cyclones and droughts have repeatedly disrupted crops and harvesting schedules, while global market swings have at times pushed returns below the cost of production. These were not isolated shocks, but conditions that shaped everyday decision-making on farm.
In response, growers developed habits of collective action that extended beyond immediate recovery. Organisation became a way of sharing risk, coordinating response and maintaining capability through periods of sustained uncertainty.
Crisis as a shared experience
Crisis in the cane industry has rarely been confined to a single paddock or district. Weather systems move across regions, market downturns affect entire seasons and disruption to harvesting, transport or milling quickly becomes shared.
Some moments made that reality unmistakable. Mass grower mobilisations such as the cane train to Brisbane reflected a collective determination to be heard when existing arrangements failed to account for growers’ interests. Major weather events, including destructive cyclones such as Yasi and Debbie, caused widespread damage across whole regions, disrupting crops, infrastructure and supply chains and requiring coordinated recovery rather than isolated effort.
In these circumstances, collective action was practical as much as symbolic. Local associations played a central role in sharing information, supporting recovery and elevating regional impacts to a level where broader responses could be pursued.
Pooling resources to build resilience
One of the most tangible expressions of collective action was growers’ willingness to pool resources.
Over time, growers agreed to contribute collectively through levies and shared arrangements to fund work that could not be delivered at the level of individual farms. These contributions supported industry-wide research and development, safety and best-practice initiatives, market information and systems designed to improve transparency and fairness in commercial dealings.
This collective investment did more than build capability in good seasons – it provided a buffer in hard ones. Knowledge, systems and coordination developed through shared effort strengthened the industry’s ability to absorb disruption when conditions turned against it.
Structural change and deregulation
The late twentieth century marked a profound shift in the operating environment for Queensland cane growers.
Deregulation removed long-standing controls and exposed the industry more directly to global market forces. Price volatility increased, commercial arrangements became more complex and risk shifted more heavily onto growers. There were seasons when world sugar prices collapsed and returns at the farm gate fell below the cost of production, placing acute pressure on farm businesses and regional communities alike.
In this environment, collective action became increasingly important. Growers relied on shared representation to navigate deregulated markets, respond to regulatory change and maintain influence in an industry where individual bargaining power was limited.
Collective action in a deregulated market
For many growers, the long campaign for Grower Choice in sugar marketing became one of the defining collective efforts of the deregulated era.
Pursued across districts and sustained over many years, the campaign reflected a broader desire for agency in an increasingly volatile market. It was shaped by lived experience – seasons of low prices, constrained options and a growing recognition that long-term viability depended on having a say in how sugar was marketed.
The Grower Choice campaign demonstrated the value of persistence and coordination. It showed that collective action was not limited to responding to crisis, but could also be sustained over time to reshape the commercial environment in which growers operated.
Collective action by choice
The move to voluntary membership in 2000 reshaped the basis of collective action.
From that point on, unity depended less on formal requirement and more on relevance, trust and shared purpose. Growers continued to differ by region and circumstance, but the need for coordination did not diminish. If anything, it became more critical as global competition intensified, domestic market structures evolved and margins tightened.
Over the past 25 years, collective action has been tested repeatedly – through prolonged droughts, major flood and cyclone events, sustained price pressure and ongoing commercial reform. In each case, its value lay not only in advocacy outcomes, but in maintaining industry capability when individual businesses were under strain.
An enduring approach
Across a century, the forms of collective action have changed, but the underlying logic has remained consistent.
When growers act together, they reduce individual exposure to risk, strengthen their ability to respond to crisis and create the conditions for longer-term stability. That approach has carried the industry through extreme weather, market collapse and structural reform, including the challenges of the past 25 years.
Collective action remains not a relic of the past, but a continuing feature of how Queensland cane growers protect what they have built and prepare for what comes next.
