Australians anxious to eat NQ’s juiciest fruit

The research has shown that Aussies can’t wait to enjoy summer eating a fruit they love.

THE mango picking season is about to begin in North Queensland and many Australians are eagerly waiting to get their hands on Australia’s juiciest fruit.

Managing director and owner of Manbulloo Ltd, Marie Piccone, said Australia was a nation of mango ­lovers.

“The research has shown that price is not necessarily the determining factor for people buying mangoes,” Ms Piccone said.

“They just want to have that amazing eating experience and they want to enjoy summer eating a fruit they love.”

Jonathon Gudge and Ben Lawrence. Picture: Satria Dyer-Darmawan

Ms Piccone owns a mango farm at Horseshoe Lagoon and said Manbulloo had been preparing since February for the upcoming picking season which is set to begin for them on ­Sunday.

“We actually flew in seasonal workers that have worked with us since 2009.

“We brought seasonal workers in from Samoa and Vanuatu and we brought 140 seasonal workers by hiring aircraft, and quarantining them in Howard Springs, so a whole lot of them are moving from the Northern Territory to do picking in the Burdekin,” Ms Piccone said.

Third generation mango farmer Kristian Pucciarmati has already started to pick mangoes on his farm.

Plantations Operations Manager, David Lawrence. Picture: Satria Dyer-Darmawan

“Normally we start in October, however, the way the flowering has been and the season we’ve had, the season will be a lot smaller,” Mr Pucciarmati said.

“The weather hasn’t been too kind to us.

“The trees never had a dry down period; they never went dormant, they kept on growing and pushing new vegetation so we didn’t get a real good flare up this year.

“Normally you would see the trees just loaded with fruit and the branches are still buckling.

“We never had the cold weather and when we did it was the hot weather followed by rain, so the trees just wanted to keep growing.

“I am hoping we will do about 25,000 trays but that’s a hopeful guess,” he said.

“I think the prices will be much the same as last year, because there was a bit of a shortage with the kensington prides last year and hopefully we make enough money to cover everything and get through another season, or else we might be in a bit of trouble,” he said.

Jessica and Kristian Pucciarmati. Picture: Satria Dyer-Darmawan

Times are changing on the farm

The Australian agricultural industry is a significant global producer of wheat, wool and beef.

Where once their farms were seen as family operations, now people in the beef industry are seeing a significant shift in attitude as their enterprises are recognised as the sophisticated businesses they are.

Graziers Mick Duckett and Emma Robinson are part of a generation of beef producers that are taking advantage of that shift.

While their operation 110km south of Charters Towers is small in terms of the number of people it employs, the business is changing and adapting to the global market.

Charters Towers graziers Emma Robinson and Michael Duckett are seeing results from being involved with the Grazing Resilience and Sustainable Solutions program.

“On a global level we’re running a small business in the scheme of things, but the big thing still remains and that is most producers have little control over price,” Emma said.

“We’re buying our inputs at retail and selling our outputs wholesale.

“You’ve got to have business sense. Most people in the industry are looking to whether they’re planning for the next generation or to grow their business.

“And we’ve got to be good business managers because we operate in a volatile environment.”

In 2014 amid the live export shutdown in Australia, and drought across northern Australia, beef producers felt the full ramifications of that volatility.

Emma said that at that time their operation was looking at six months to get cattle into the JBS meatworks in Townsville.

“We really felt like we were living life at the end of the food chain,” she said.

“In that period we used those insights and that frustration that we were feeling to start thinking is there more to simply being a producer of a product?

“We were getting very low prices for cattle at a time when the beef market, the prices for beef, were at world highs.

“We’re seeing the reverse of some of those trends at the moment, but it really highlighted the cyclic nature of the industry that we’re in and really got us wondering about what we can do.”

Women In Grazing, Emma Robinson of Caerphilly Station, Charters Towers.

Emma said as passionate farmers they are not alone in thinking that way in the industry today, but most know they have to think outside that idea of simply being farmers if successful enterprises are to be passed on to the next generation.

She said a lot more consideration was being given to sustainability, long-term planning and ensuring resilience, which sometimes means working less in silos.

It’s something she is passionate about, having undertaken a Churchill Fellowship to explore and connect with other farming enterprises where she kept coming back to the success of the co-operative model.

“While this industry is at a high at the moment, we know things can change,” she said.

“You’ve got to have good systems in place and you’ve got to have good support mechanisms.

“Beef enterprises are looking to get more out of commodity prices.

“And while you always want to contribute to the local community and the local economy, we’re also having to compete in a global market.

“I think business is changing. I don’t think it’s as simple as it was.

“The nature of small farming businesses in their communities is changing.”

Originally published as Australians anxious to eat NQ’s juiciest fruit