Grower Group marks 20 years of innovation in farming
24/9/2017
Over 20 years of tough efforts and research and rural progress were recognized in Dalwallinu in August with the participation of over 110 members who joined others to honor the Liebe’s Group 20th anniversary.
Over 20 years of tough effort, research and rural progress were recognized in Dalwallinu in August with the participation of over 110 members who joined to honor the Liebe’s Group 20th anniversary.Former and existing members, employees and partners of the group marked their entrance to the Dalwallinu Hall during 25th of August to celebrate the important offerings Liebe Group has granted to rural development since its launch.
The idea behind the development group was formed in 1996, a time when Liebe Group co-founders Stuart McAlpine and Kim Diamond along with Buntine growers made their dreams of investing in rural research projects a reality.
Mr McAlpine revealed that essentially, they shared a dissatisfaction as the majority of research carried out of the Department of Agriculture, with Moora, Three Springs and Wongan Hill establishments, and they were simply caught up in the middle of these-and felt that more research work needed to be conducted.
This is why he begun discussing about gathering a group of growers together after seeing that Kim has performed many innovative initiatives in Landcare and Saltland green lands and saw vast potential--he had the idea to fund a farmer group collaborating actively with each other for a common cause.
Their hopes was to launch a group where everyone else will resort and they’ve set up this productive space in which they performed trials nearby so they could examine them all in a single day and hold an information day for covering details instead of taking part in multiple events.
20 years ago and in 1997, Mr McAlpine and Mr Diamond announced their official proposal for a non-profit grassroot research group with a focus on development, to work in the areas of Buntine, Latham, and Wubin to local growers we embraced their idea.
The group was initially named LBW (acronym for Latham, Buntine and Wubin Research) but grew to include others nearby regions as well like Coorow, Dalwallinu, Perenjori, and Wongan Ballidu land divisions.
By adding other land divisions as well, of course the former name had to be changed and their source of inspiration become from the established German-native developer and local grower Friederich Liebe.
He actually migrated from his home country Germany to Australia in 1885 after establishing himself and a developer and architect in Bulgaria and Hungary.
His construction work went on in Australia and he was engaged in the building of His Majesty perth theatre, the WA Art Gallery and the Maylands Peninsula Hotel.
As he experienced a career shift, Mr Liebe started as grower in early 20th century and by the end of the 20s decade, over 8K hectares were under his ownership in Wubin.
He is considered to be the first main globally to generate 9500 tonnes or 106K bags of wheat in a single season in the year of 1929.
Both Mr McAlpine and Liebe’s contributions of developed and innovating growing were the main forces behind the establishment of the group.
Mr McAlpine also recognized Liebe’s innovative efforts- he noticed that he conducted evening shift lights on tractors and bulk processing and begun growing when he crossed his 50 years.
He was an established constructor and thus his name was ideally tied to other regions and cities even if in these years that kind of tie to a city was declining together with a deep knowledge of rural special needs.
Thas was the greatest part of their story as he noted. The past two decades Liebe Group has developed to act on the behalf of over 100 farm companies and work on over 1M of land hectares. The group also contributed to the development of rural research and growth across the country. Their employee number also increased from 1 to 5 and they will soon progress to a new office in Dalwallinu.
Mr McAlpine stated that the biggest success of the group he is the most proud, was the participation and featuring if all community actors. Their aim as he said was to collaborate together in agricultural matters for the common good and that was broadly embraced by the members.
This was a process of encouraging others to give it a try and that was a part of their success which was powered by the farmers and their partners.
The involvement of all parties concerned, even females engaged with their female committee was conventionally a male business but they’ve spotted many talented and professional young females returned to a region with plenty of potential so they wanted to generate an atmosphere of inclusion.
Rebecca McGregor, Liebe’s Group Executive officer recognized a portion of the organisations success to its founding parties who were commended in the anniversary feast.
She commented that despite the group’s growth, its main values haven’t changed over the years since their launch.
Many of their values as she commented were created from the beginning of their journey and are still the same and that is perhaps why the group still stands behind their own purpose-being triggered by the grassroots and ground ad that has remained the same, she commented.
Ms Mcgregor also expressed her excitement for the next years to come as she anticipates new opportunities for Liebe Organisation and its members. She added her willingness to continue supporting regional RD and E from the ground up and engagedly looking for new opportunities that are valuable and specific to their members.
Mr McAlpine also expressed his faith in Liebe Group’s still being an important contributor to the growth of agriculture regionally and throughout the country as the next bake of Liebe Group members expresses their excitement.
He added that even though the group is one generation old, they anticipate the next bake of farmers showing up and more fathers and sons of even daughters following, going from generation to generation.
Mr McAlpine said that there are numerous instances in the air to launch industries that could be more productive and grower organisations should be included.
