Debbie and Tina Caamano - Celebrating International Women's Day

Love and laughter filled the shed as we spoke with mother and daughter Debbie and Tina Caamano about their family and their farms. 

Debbie’s husband, José had “come to make his fortune in Australia and go home (to Spain),” but he met Debbie, and four kids and more than 40 years later is still farming.  

The family’s most recent venture is in coffee (see the story on page 34 of this edition), but they have grown small crops together and continue to grow citrus as well.  

Daughter Tina has her own citrus farm too, but her and her children work alongside Debbie and Jose to make Caamano Estate Coffee a truly family-centric business. 

“In farming, if you’re going to work together you’ve got to have the same goals and beliefs and Tina’s got that,” Debbie said. 

The family effort of farming is something that’s been instilled in Tina since she was a baby. 

Debbie spoke of the struggles with black frost when the family grew small crops. 

“Tina was a baby, and we wrapped her in a blanket. We put her in the back of the Gemini, took her to the paddock where we changed those sprinklers.”  

As the family grew, so did their adventures.  

“Even when we planted the lime trees, we had an old Holden van, put a mattress in the back and that was the playground in the paddock for the babies,” Debbie recalled. 

Debbie also spoke of taking produce to the Cairns institution that is Rusty’s Markets.  

“We used to do Rusty’s Market. We used to load the truck up once a week and go around to Cairns to all the fruit shops, Debbie said.  

“At Rusty’s as long as there was a table to sleep under, we were fine,” Tina said.  

Tina said that their united approach is important when the going gets tough. 

“It’s hard when things don’t work or you have a bad year, you’ve got to stay motivated and focused.” 

No matter what, the mother and daughter duo keep their sense of humour. 

“At least we have our meltdowns at different times…” Debbie laughed. 

“And it’s like they say, you pull up your big girl panties and keep going.” she continued.