An Indigenous community in the Northern Territory has teamed up with the nation's largest garlic producer to plant a commercial garlic crop in the middle of Australia.
In the red sandy soils of the Alekarenge Horticultural farm, 350 kilometres north of Alice Springs, Alyawarr women Sabrina Kelly and Tisha Corbett are excited to see the project expanding.
They have been involved in garlic trials over the past four years and say they have learnt a lot.
"[Before the trials] I didn't know anything about growing," Ms Corbett said.
"It's good for the kids to join in because they get to learn [about] growing and food and what's healthy."
Ms Kelly said she had learnt what sort of fertiliser to use for the soil and how much water each plant needed per day.
"It brings the community together, and also it's good we're working as a team," she said.
A pathway out of poverty
Farm manager Joe Clarke, an Arrernte man from Central Australia, said Centrefarm was established 15 years ago to provide training and employment opportunities for Indigenous people — with a focus on agriculture.
"It's a pathway, a clear pathway, so we can work our way out of poverty and get meaningful employment," he said.
"It's exciting to see the younger people jump on the tractors, plough the dirt, lay the sprinklers and get an exciting 3.5 hectares ready.
"It makes my job worthwhile coming up to work every day."
Garlic in the desert
The crop has been made possible through the support of Australian Garlic Producers, which provided planting material and horticultural guidance for Centrefarm to grow the garlic.
Chief executive Nick Diamantopoulos said the garlic variety originated from the central west of Africa.
"We've had to introduce the garlic varieties in through quarantine and multiply them and develop them and then select cloves that performed really well in these areas," he said.
"Usually garlic is a cooler-climate crop, so to grow garlic literally in the desert is quite unique."
Mr Diamantopoulos said the garlic variety would be ready for harvest from August, whereas garlic grown in cooler parts of Australia gets harvested later in November.
"Most countries will harvest a garlic variety for about three, four weeks — maybe six weeks maximum — but to have fresh garlic come in over a six-month window is just incredible," he said.
"This will enable us to replace imported garlic and have fresh Australian garlic all year round, and with our diverse climatic conditions we can certainly do that."
A strong partnership
Mr Diamantopoulos said when Australian Garlic Producers first came to Central Australia, its most northern garlic crop, the organisation was searching for suitable climatic conditions, soil, and daylight hours to grow early in the season.
"And then we met with the community in the area and we've become friends and now we're working together," he said.
"They've come down to Mildura in Victoria where our headquarters is, and they've seen what we do and there's a wonderful exchange going on."
Ms Kelly also said the experience had been positive.
"When they harvest that second garlic here and [we] went to that place at [the] factory and [they] told us that this garlic belongs to you, it made me happy and proud," she said.
"Very proud."
