Humble

By Jim Mynard
HENK Lenders comes under the old axiom ‘a self made man’.
The words reflect a principle of the early days of our district, when people learned their trade on the job.
Some youngsters could run a farm before they reached the school leaving age of 14, and many did.
Henk was born in Holland and in December 1955 came by plane to Australia with his parents, two brothers, and his sister.
“I was three and just remember the journey in the propeller aeroplane.
“Our plane broke down in India and we were delayed so the flight took us a week,” he said.
Henk said he was blessed with two more sisters, after coming to Australia, both born at Kooweerup Hospital.
His relatives were farmers in Holland and farmed carp, something he said was unheard of in Australia.
“My Dad had a diploma of agriculture and he began farming when we arrived in Australia.
“We were relatively well off in Holland and luckier than many.
“My family was co-opted to produce food and the German soldiers mostly left us alone.
“But we had to leave our money behind when we came to Australia because of regulations.
“Nevertheless, my dad was able to buy a herd of cows and began share farming, but he had some customs that didn’t work here.
“He thought he would be okay riding a push bike and wearing clogs.”
Henk said his dad found out about the rough Kooweerup Swamp roads fairly quickly so he bought a car.
He share farmed for Sam Inverno at Dalmore and by this time Henk was approaching school age.
“I remember being in tears when I first started at St John’s School, Kooweerup, because I couldn’t talk to anyone.
“I could speak Dutch and German, but not English.
“This made it difficult for me to communicate,” he said.
He said, however, the Italian children had the same problem.
“When I was about five we moved to Humphries Road, Catani, and worked there for five years until my parents bought a farm at Garfield.”
Fate did not deal kindly to the family because the news came that his father at age 49 had just six months to live, and much fell on Henk’s shoulders as the eldest in the family.
He was 16 when the news hit the family and this set the pattern for a sad time.
He was living the life of many youngsters on the Swamp in those days, milking cows, and ‘picking up spuds’, with things tougher because of his father’s illness.
“Dad had an operation and lived a little longer than we expected.
“But we sold up in the end,” he said.
“I recall the 1967–68 drought when my father bought oaten hay and I would have to work one and a half hours with the farmer to pay for a bale of hay.”
He was educated at nearby St Joseph’s, Iona, and was growing up with a work ethic and desire to make his own way in life, but still working with his father.
Henk bought 20 acres as a young man and later acquired more land.
“For a while Dad had the dairy farm and I had some land so we worked in shares and I bought more land.
“I did this mostly from my own resources,” he said.
Just after the loss of his father Henk bought land at Little Road, Iona.
“I bought the farm on half deposit walk in walk out.
“It came with a herd of cows and a milk contract so it was back to milking.
“Really, I’d had enough of milking cows in my youth before and after school, but that’s how it was.
“Things are totally different for the young ones these days.
“We milked from 1976 to 1983 and then sold the milk contract,” he said.
Henk, it seemed, still had his eye on potato growing.
“I got a good deal to grow spuds and I could see the industry was becoming more and more mechanised.
“We always had a problem getting casual labour, although I had a chap on full-time when we were dairying, and have some good workers now,” he said.
Henk met Glasgow lass, Dawn Hollinsworth, and they were married in January 1991.
They have six children Craig, Laura, Erin, Chloe, Kieran, and Liam.
All except, Liam, attend St Paul’s School in Warragul.
Henk this year planted 155 acres of his property and another 260 acres on share with Neil Cowie.
That’s a lot of work, but Craig works part time on the farm, and they have four seasonal helpers.
Henk thinks his team works just for the involvement and the companionship.
“They’ve been coming here for years.
“They are local people and very reliable.
“They seem to work for the company rather than the money they earn,” he said.
The farm produces potato varieties suitable for crisping.
He said these were specially-bred varieties and may not be suitable for normal kitchen cookery.
“They are specially grown for processing whereas other varieties are ideal for the table.”
Henk has been back to his home country four times to see how things are done there.
Holland is a large potato producing country and harvests eight times the volume of potatoes grown in Australia.
“Holland growers have advanced techniques and machinery.
“Their research and development is also extremely good.
“They also produce potatoes for starch manufacture and that’s a big industry in Holland.
“We don’t see the better machinery in Australia.
“But we do have good harvesters, and larger planting machines.
“We are using improved booms for irrigation and can deliver water at lower pressure right on target.
“This avoids overlapping and sending water over the fence into other paddocks where it isn’t needed.
“We have good harvesters that leave the dirt and weeds in the paddock so that potatoes come into the shed clean for the handlers,” he said.
The Kooweerup Swamp became a control zone for potato growing, and because of leading practices Henk was using, his shed was chosen as an example of what was needed under the new regulations.
“We wash potatoes, inspect them, and they go into 45 tonne aluminium tippers for transport to the factories interstate.
“I can recall cutting spuds by hand in the early days and compare that with mechanical cutters that can put through nine tonnes of cut seed an hour.
“These days I can cut the seed, fertilise, and plant 20 acres a day.
“We plant one to one-and-a-half tonnes to the acre and harvest up to 15 tonnes,” he said.
Seed potato tubers are usually cut into two or three pieces, each with one or two growing shoots, in readiness for planting.
Traditionally tubers were cut by hand.
But this was labour-intensive and time-consuming. The work, particularly for bigger growers, is now done by machine.
Land needs to rest so paddocks are set aside for rejuvenation in a rotation system.
“We run beef cattle on these areas.
“I don’t plant other crops because I prefer to concentrate on the processing companies’ needs.
“If I go into side crops I would need another set of machinery and know how.
“I prefer the security of a better relationship with the two companies I deal with and a level income.
“Maybe we miss the highs.
“But also we miss the lows,” he said.