Yarra Valley U-pick trail allows people to fill up baskets with fresh fruit

YARRA Valley farmers are urging people to support them as they face a rapidly changing agricultural landscape, and what better way than picking your own fruit? Find out where to get your fill.

Brothers Mark and Steve Chapman are part of a new U-pick trail.

YARRA Valley farmers are encouraging locals to support them as they face a rapidly changing agricultural landscape.

And a new initiative is allowing people to get out and taste the best of what the valley has the offer.

RELATED: How to get the cheapest fruit and veg

RELATED: Fruit shop brawl leaves sour taste

Water, climate, land values and labour costs are some of the challenges confronting farmers across the region who are turning to technology and alternative business streams to stay ahead of the curve.

Fourth-generation cherry grower Steve Chapman and his brother Mark own Chappies in Silvan and are on the newly formed Yarra Valley U-Pick Trail, offering people the chance to fill up buckets and baskets with fresh local produce.

Yarra Valley Tourism chief executive Simon O’Callaghan said the U-pick trail was fantastic and helped like-minded businesses work together and promote each other.

“It increases the (orchard’s) yield because they can sell direct to the community,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

“They can create an agri-tourism experience, and nature-based experience is why people to come to our region.

“The trail is enormously popular with first-generation Australians...the experience of picking blows their mind.”

Kaz Chapman at Chappies U-Pick Cherries and Berries.

The Chapman’s grow a range of berries including cherries, blueberries, boysenberries and raspberries.

Chappies is also is part of a co-op, made up of a dozen local growers who supply cherries and berries to Woolworths and Coles.

Mr Chapman said to make a farm viable these days, it had to innovate or corporatise and expand in order to supply supermarkets.

The Chapmans, like other farms, are focusing on methods of growing that lessen the need for fruit pickers, and have less waste fruit.

He said berry growing had shifted to hydroponics, and strawberries were grown in tunnels on steel tabletops, which saw a 40 per cent drop in labour.

Apple grower Kevin Sanders and his brothers Bob and Peter are third-generation farmers in Three Bridges and supply about 2000 tonnes of the fruit to Coles, Aldi and farmers markets.

“We need to be at the forefront of innovation to stay in the competition,” Mr Sanders said.

Cutting down on labour costs, and making picking simpler is also a priority for the Sanders who have vastly changed their orchard growing methods.

Cherry Association president and Wandin Valley Farm director Alison Jones said many smaller orchards were choosing to turn to u-pick and farm gate sales and the community valued learning about where fruit is grown.

“Smaller farms are changing to fit,” she said.

The changing face of Yarra Valley farms

MORE than 130 years ago settlers cleared land in the Yarra Valley and made the most of the climate and rich soil, perfect for growing fruit and vegetables, but in the past few years the game has changed.

One of the pressures facing the agricultural sector in the valley is adequate water supply, which had been affected by greater demand and climate change, fourth-generation grower Steve Chapman said.

Where traditional farms relied a lot on rainfall, many agriculturalists have innovated using modern irrigation and growing systems which require less labour.

“If you don’t have direct diversion from a stream, you don’t have a decent water supply,” Mr Chapman said.

Men picking raspberries at W.H. Sebires & Sons, Wandin circa 1880. Credit: Lilydale Historical Society.

“But there are more restrictions from streams with need for environmental flows.”

He said the water supply from the Upper Yarra to Silvan reservoir pipeline was expensive to buy, and access was limited, which restricted what fruit the farm could grow.

“We pay $3000 a megalitre, where we previously paid $15,000 a year just for water for lemons,” Mr Chapman said.

Mr Chapman said Australian labour costs were among the highest in the world, and attributed to 50 per cent of the final price of fruit to the consumer.

Three Bridges apple grower Kevin Sanders and his brothers Bob and Peter have vastly changed their orchard-growing methods.

Now instead of the tall, bushy trees which saw pickers on tall ladders, the plants are grown so thinner, with a narrow canopy on trellised structures, which suit a robotic future.

Bob, Kevin and Peter Sanders.

Mr Sanders said the business would be investing in an apple harvester in 2019 which would act as a vacuum and suck apples from the trees into a bin.

Cherry Association president and Wandin Valley Farm director Alison Jones is a sixth-generation farmer in the valley.

Ms Jones’ family came out from Guernsey in the 1880s and started the Mont de Lancey farm in Wandin North.

The family still grows on the majority of the land but have expanded and bought land in Wangaratta — where the climate is more stable and land cheaper.

“You need a sizeable piece of land for it (the farm) to be your sole income,” Ms Jones said.

“You can’t get a holding large enough (in the Yarra Valley) but also it’s harder to afford to buy on a large scale in this area.”