OUR
DAILY
BREAD
Growing Wheat
in Tasmania
Imagine going to the supermarket and paying $35 for a loaf of bread! Tasmania’s pioneers faced the equivalent in
1816.
With the average worker in Van Diemen’s Land spending 10% of their £1 a week wage to buy a 24 p loaf of
bread, when they could get it at all, the citizens expressed their discontent to the authorities. Governor Davey
responded, licensing all bakeries and fixing the price of a 1 lb loaf at 10p. The bread crisis was alleviated and the
bakery business stabilised.
A few decades earlier, in 1788, Governor Phillip and his small flotilla of ships had sailed into Sydney Harbour
bringing seeds of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), the foundation of a crop on which the fledgling colony was to
depend. The wheat however failed to thrive: the soils of Port Jackson were poor, there were few farmers on the
fleet and most of the seed didn’t germinate. Fortunately two of the settlers, James Ruse, a ticket of leave convict,
and parson Richard Johnstone proved adept at farming and as well as maize they managed to grow some wheat on
their land grants at Rose Hill, now Parramatta. Other settlers followed their example at Rose Hill, and over 400
acres of land was soon cleared. Maize grew far better than wheat, but it’s flour was a poor substitute for bread
making. The new settlers were nothing if not determined and as farming settlements spread along the
Hawkesbury and Nepean River valleys cultural techniques for wheat were developed and the wheat crop soon
reached 6000 acres. Australia’s variable climate however played havoc with their endeavours: the 1798 crop was
severely reduced by drought and floods on the Hawkesbury swept away much of the 1800 harvest.
As a deterrent to the French, who were exploring Van Diemens Land at the time, John Bowen was sent from
Sydney in 1803 to establish a settlement in the Derwent estuary at Risdon Cove. The young commander
struggled to manage his unruly soldiers, and the convicts they supervised, while his free settlers endeavoured to
grow food, including wheat, for the outpost. At around the same time David Collins was despatched from
London with instructions to establish a settlement on the shore of Bass Strait. After a brief stay at Port Phillip Bay,
in Victoria, he came to the Derwent. His convicts and soldiers landed at Sullivans Cove, whilst the free settlers
moved up-river to New Town Bay. A Government farm was established and a 19 acre wheat crop grown.
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Astutely, Collins avoided Phillips mistake of relying heavily on British seed, which germinated poorly after its
voyage through the tropics. He had purchased additional seed, which had good viability, from Rio de Janeiro and
Cape Town. Farming in the north of Van Diemens Land began in the Esk River valley, when a party of convicts
and settlers from Sydney, led by William Paterson, settled at Launceston.
Seasonal conditions in Van Diemen’s Land fluctuated, but overall the land and climate was much better suited to
growing wheat than coastal NSW. The area planted quickly expanded as the fledgling colony’s demand for flour
increased. A water mill was built on the Hobart Rivulet by Norfolk Island refugee Robert Nash and was grinding
flour by 1809. However the flow in the rivulet was erratic prompting Nash to built the colony’s first wind mill at
Pittwater.
The commissariat of the government store was the major market for the colonists’ wheat, and he offered them
10s per bushel (a bushel is a measure of volume, equivalent to 36 litres, and a bushel of wheat weighs around 60lb
or 27kg). They could also exchange wheat for bread; 4 lb of wheat for a 1 lb loaf worth 10p. With official
currency in short supply and promissory notes only able to be drawn on NSW banks, wheat became an unofficial
form of currency. In 1817 Richard Lewis, a Hobart Town merchant, advertised a range of imported goods for
sale, in exchange for “government money or good wheat”.
The fledgling Van Diemen’s Land settlements were governed from Sydney, itself a colony in turmoil. The Port
Jackson administration was rife with political positioning and corruption and its farmers struggled to feed the ever
increasing numbers of arriving convicts; hardly the basis for developing self sufficiency. Van Diemen’s Land’s
potential to be a reliable supplier of wheat for NSW was recognised in 1810, but it was to be two years before
the first Hobart shipment arrived in Port Jackson. By the end of the decade regular shipments from Hobart and
Launceston achieved good prices in Sydney, reaching 20 s per bushel in 1817, double the price being offered in
Hobart. It is little wonder that Governor Davey felt the need to secure Van Diemen’s Land’s bread supply by
regulating production and price. With variable and unreliable production in NSW, and speculative traders using
wheat as a form of tender, there was a real possibility that Van Diemen’s Land would be left without sufficient
milling wheat for the colony’s staple food—bread.
Wheat growing in Van Diemen’s Land developed at a time when land transport was difficult. With only primitive
roads, adjacent navigateable waterways were essential for cropping areas. The Sorell and Richmond areas with
access from Pittwater, extensive areas of fertile land, and a drying summer climate were ideally situated. From
April till September shallow draft ships docked at jetties near the two townships, and loaded bagged wheat which
was then transhipped in Hobart or taken directly to Sydney. In the north the Norfolk Plains (Longford area) grew
the best crops, with the grain shipped via the Tamar from Launceston. Settlements along the East Coast from
Bream Creek to Cranbrook were also accessible by boat from Hobart, and where the soil was good, wheat was
grown.
From the humble beginnings of a couple of hundred bushels grown at New Town during the first decade of the
1800’s, wheat production in Van Diemen’s Land reached 60,000 bushels by 1820 and regularly exceeded
100,000 by the middle of the century. The small island of Van Diemen’s Land (later Tasmania) became the bread
basket for Australia.
The mechanisation of wheat production was underway in Britain and USA by the early 1800’s, but horse
powered machines for sowing, threshing and winnowing were not used in Australia, largely because of the ample
supply of cheap labour—the convicts. When transportation to Van Diemen’s Land ceased in 1853, the cost of
labour went up and mechanised production began in earnest. The reaper-and-binders did away with the sickle,
just as the stump-jump-plough had banished the hoe. The agricultural revolution continued with the introduction
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of the peg-drum threshing machine and winnower but it was the horse-drawn McKay combine harvester,
launched in Australia in 1885, that truly revolutionised wheat growing. The earlier stationary machines required
the reaped and stooked sheaves to be transported to them, but the combine harvester did away with them all.
This machine cut the standing crop, threshed and winnowed it, discarded the trash and bagged the grain in one
operation. Furthermore it was mobile, doing the lot whilst travelling round the paddock.
The McKay combine harvester was adopted throughout Australia, but it was in the mainland states where the
biggest advantage was gained. Extensive areas of flat land were ideally suited to mechanised production. Low
production costs became more important than high yield as rail transport and the waterways of the Murray River
system provided a transport network for remote areas to access the markets and ports. Tasmania was no longer
the major producer of wheat in Australia. Production declined to little more 0.1% of the nations crop as ever
better quality and higher yielding bread wheat varieties were developed for the dryer areas.
In the last two decades wheat growing in Tasmania has taken a new turn. The island’s farmers are now growing
different wheat varieties and developing alternative markets: spelt, pasta wheat, stone-ground and organic.
Tasmania is unlikely to ever become the predominant bread wheat growing state it once was but it is quickly
developing as a producer of high quality speciality wheat and flour. And the fortunate thing for us is that we don’t
have to pay $35 for a loaf of bread.
Could be a scene from the 1800’s, a field of wheat at Tea Tree, Tasmania.
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