by Jonathan Hair, ABC Net
The storm did hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage to fruit farms near Yeppoon.
Ben Clifton’s property was one of those hit by Marcia’s fury.
“The scene here after Cyclone Marcia was utter devastation – there was machinery wrapped around telephone poles, there was plant blown flat, sheds buckled in,” he said.
“Our main machinery shed looked a little bit like the Sydney Opera House with nice curves in the walls.”
After the storm, Mr Clifton had to decide it if was viable to rebuild.
“Twenty per cent of all our young plantings in the ground were destroyed from sheer wind damage – just picking up the sand off the ground and basically sand blasting the outside two or three rows of each block,” he said.
“We had half-a-million pineapples ready to be harvested and we picked zero of them.”
But he decided to continue on and is now harvesting one of his best crops in years.
He has more than 6 million individual pineapple plants on his farm, with each fruit taking about two years to grow.
“Fortunately Mother Nature has come to the party,” he said.
“She’s given us regular rainfall and that’s been the making of the beautiful crop we’ve got behind us.”
From Mr Clifton’s farm, the fruit is sent to a nearby packing shed and then distributed to markets around Australia.
Source: ABC Net