Updated
June 06, 2020 10: 24: 23
They’ve been a part of Australia for more than 100 years. A pandemic has slowed them down, but those at their heart believe they can recover. They’ve done it before.
It’s a cold and crisp autumn morning in western Sydney.
Farmer Rita Kelman is busy picking cucumbers on Wallacia farm in the Sydney Basin — an area known locally as the “food bowl”.
Produce from here feeds Sydneysiders and supplies the city’s many Chinese restaurants and cafes.
But as iconic business hubs like Chinatown closed, the farms that supply them became another casualty of this crisis.
“I know many Chinese-run farms suffered a lot financially,” the 65-year-old tells the ABC.
“Many Chinese farmers have had to destroy produce as many restaurants closed down, so they’ve nowhere to sell.”
Seeking opportunity in a new country, the former Chinese nurse emigrated to Australia in the 1980s and fell into farming two decades ago after marrying her husband, George Kelman.
In the months since the pandemic broke out, the Kelman family has been determined to keep business afloat by selling any produce they can online and making deliveries to their customers.
When Chinatown is busy, produce from the Sydney Basin gets served up every day at hundreds of restaurants to thousands of diners.
But post-pandemic demand is down.
Sydney Chinatown restaurateur Henry Xu had been excited to host the first waves of customers looking to dine-in at his 100-seat hot pot venue, with up to 50 customers allowed inside as lockdowns ease.
But the previous hustle and bustle of Chinatown is still eerily missing.
“It’s very quiet and lots of shops closed … it’s not busy anymore,” Mr Xu laments.
Just six months ago, the hopeful business owner struggled to manage queues of excited diners lining up outside his doors.
It’s starkly different today.
“You know, no cars on the streets. No people working in Chinatown.”
‘We knew difficult times were coming’
Diners and shoppers started deserting Chinese businesses after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Australia on January 25.
“I remember it was the second day of Chinese New Year … suddenly a lot of people cancelled their bookings,” said Mr Xu, whose business slumped by 70 per cent.
“We realised it was getting worse — we knew difficult times were coming.”
Mr Xu said his restaurant had to quickly adopt new business strategies like offering delivery services and discounte