In The Onion Fields, The Only Tears Are Those Of Joy
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday January 17, 2003
Children wake before dawn in the onion fields of Griffith. Their parents would already have been at work for an hour there, grabbing handfuls of the bulbs in the dark or using head torches for light.
The Turkish migrants have been coming to the Riverina farms for 20 years or so, earning $150 a day for the long, hot work. They come from Perth, Melbourne and Sydney for the guaranteed work, camaraderie and the Turkish music wailing through the fields.
Many have regular jobs in the cities but have made onion picking part of their summer ritual.
Okan ``Rambo" Ciyim, 30, has been making the onion pilgrimage to Griffith for 14 years, staying for the grape season in March.
He was born in Australia but most of the 60 pickers who work on John and Dino Piccoli's farm are Turks who came to Australia in the 1970s. There is a handful of Pacific Islanders and, for a few years, a Sikh priest was a regular.
``I call my friends and say, `come and work'," Mr Ciyim said. ``Families pick together because it's school holidays. If the kids are young they just play. If they're older, they pick. They come for the money, it's good money. You can make $50 and go home or stay and make $250, but the average is $150 a day."
It takes an hour to fill a half-tonne bin, pulling the Spanish onions from the dusty soil and chopping off the leaves. By the end of this month, 7000 tonnes of onions will have been unearthed from the Piccolis' farm, for the domestic and international markets.
The Turks rent houses in Griffith, or stay in caravans and tents. Fifty years ago, it was the Italian migrants who brought in the crops and some, like John Piccoli, worked hard enough to buy their own farms.
Mr Ciyim's picking makes him enough money to have a holiday in Turkey every two years. ``The last couple of years [in Griffith] it's been nice and cool, but it can get up to 40, 45. There's always mozzies and after they go the black flies start," he said.
© 2003 Sydney Morning Herald