IT wasn’t long ago the name Nenke was associated with a Western Australian exporting powerhouse, sending a tonne of yabbies each week from Kukerin to the world.
Mary and Michael Nenke worked with farmers in the Wheatbelt and Great Southern in the 1990s, teaching them how to grow yabbies in their dams for a supplementary income.
The yabbies would then be harvested, processed and sold under the Nenkes’ Cambinata Yabbies brand.
“Cambinata Yabbies, at its peak, the biggest week we ever had was 4.1 tonnes of yabbies and they were going to Europe, Asia, Middle East and America,” Mrs Nenke told Business News.
“At the moment we are down to, I suppose, 20 kilos a week.
“We have lost too many farmers. When we started Cambinata Yabbies in 1991 there were over 30,000 farmers in the Wheatbelt and the Great Southern. Now there are about 3,000.”
Several factors have contributed to the collapse of the yabby industry.
The growth of corporate and broadacre farming is one, as is the rise of insecticide use, according to Mrs Nenke.
“Insecticides have been absolutely traumatic, and it started when the state government sprayed from Esperance to Perth to kill grasshoppers in 2006,” she said.
“We had farmers bring in 100 kilos at a time, and after that there was nothing. One whiff and they were gone.”
The federal government’s live export ban from mid-2028 has also been a factor, with farmers getting out of sheep and into cropping.
Dams that formerly watered livestock (and hosted yabbies) are being filled in as a result of this change in farm practices.
All of this necessitated a change of tack at the Nenkes’ 2,200-hectare grain farm.
Cottage industry
In 2006, the family started implementing its diversification strategy, which included the establishment of eight high-end cottages on the property for farm stays.
A federal government report last month laid out the growing value of agritourism such as this.
Last year, tourists spent nearly one in five nights at an agritourism destination, with the sector worth more than $20 billion nationally.
About $5.6 billion of that value was derived from international visitors.
The report found 91 per cent of luxury foreign travellers were interested in agritourism, with those aged 25-34 most likely to indulge in the sector.
That has been the experience at Mary’s Farm Cottages.
“Only last night we had some Taiwanese travellers here, they come here twice a year,” Mrs Nenke said.
“We also had people from Queensland here last night and NSW and Victoria during the week. Of course, we get people from the city coming down here to bring their kids to be on a real farm.
“We encourage people to go and tour local farms, because there’s an emu farm here, and people can go out there if they book and have emu egg cake.”
The cottages have helped to sandbag the Nenkes’ income against volatile grain prices.
As Mrs Nenke puts it, unlike for grain, they can set the price for the cottages.
Lisa Nenke, who’s married to the Nenkes’ son, Derek, is increasingly taking on a leadership role in the agritourism operation.
“You have got to have something else to fall back on with the hard years,” Lisa Nenke said.
“There’s a huge market for showing the city where the food comes from. “It is something I’d like to continue.”
The feast returns
Food has always been the core ingredient in the Nenkes’ business.
The family’s annual Cambinata Extravaganza was the stuff of legend.
Started in 2003 and running for 13 years, the annual feast showcased the company’s hero ingredient and attracted the state’s political and business elite to the remote locale.
“In 2000, I was the rural woman of the year for WA, the first one,” Mrs Nenke said.
“I had many opportunities to speak and share my passion to have gourmet tours in the region.
“Somebody said we should have a silver service dinner in the paddock and invite the prime minister.
“Michael can still remember me winding down the window and telling him we’re going to turn the shearing shed into a function centre.”
And so, the shearing shed grates were covered, chandeliers made, and “three tonnes of sheep manure” shovelled out to create a more appropriate function venue.
It was always seen as a key event in the diary for those holding the policy and purse strings to rub shoulders with – and occasionally cop an earful from – farmers.
The event was put on ice nearly a decade ago.
However, Mary and Lisa Nenke believe the time is right for a revival, with the feast to return on March 21 next year.
Tickets are already selling; politicians have booked tables.
“People have been asking ever since we stopped doing it eight years ago when we will be having another dinner,” Mrs Nenke said.
“There is a huge disconnect between the city and the country and between people in parliament who make these decisions without actually understanding what they are creating.
“The big thing with this is to connect the city and the country, bring them out here to actually find out what farming is about.”
Mrs Nenke promises yabbies will find their way onto the menu, somehow.
