Farmer plants new crop in a new land

However, when dictator Robert Mugabe reclaimed his three farms in his native Zimbabwe, Mr Sauzier emigrated to Australia.

‘The wheat and soybean farm was taken away in 2000 and that’s when I realised that if they could take one farm they could take everything,’ Mr Sauzier said.

‘They took the tractors, equipment and we lost everything. I still have the original title deeds to my three properties that I brought with me to Australia.

The Mugabe government ended up repossessing more than 4000 commercial farms across the nation.

After moving to WA, Mr Sauzier bought 80ha of land near Gingin in 2003, built a large home for himself and wife Genny and planted 14,000 olive trees.

He later purchased a processing plant and Green Gold Farm was born.

‘To come to a new country, everything was new so I had to do what I knew best which was farming,’ he said.

‘I love farming olives because they are an old agricultural product. Olive trees can live to be more than 2000 years old and the shelf life of the oil is much longer than tomatoes or apples.’

Last year, Green Gold Farm produced about 70,000 litres of extra virgin olive oil for the domestic market.

It is sold under the Kara Australis brand in Perth as well as Red Island, which is sold in Coles and Woolworths supermarkets.