Bumper crop thrills blueberry hill

IN Woolgoolga, the blueberry harvest is winding down and brothers Jas and Bob Benning are drawing breath.

Bob Benning and brother Jas checking the yield from their blueberry farm near Woolgoolga on NSW’s nort...

IN Woolgoolga, on NSW’s mid-north coast, the blueberry harvest is winding down and brothers Jas and Bob Benning are drawing breath. It’s been a good season - since November they’ve picked and shipped out more than 2.4 million punnets of blueberries.

“It’s the best season we’ve ever had,” says Jas Benning. “The dry weather meant we had more marketable fruit and bigger berries. Usually we get hit with rain and then we can’t pick.”

Woolgoolga is near the centre of a global blueberry boom. Worldwide, the fruit is the fastest growing fresh produce and its popularity is surging, driven partly by health benefits. The fruit is billed as a superfood because of its high levels of antioxidants. Australian production has quadrupled in the past seven years and retail sales estimated at $135 million in 2013 continue to grow. The brothers’ family business, KS Benning, is one of the largest in this community of about 200 Indian Sikh families, most of whom grow the fruit. “Our two sisters grow blueberries, and all of my cousins do, too,” says Jas Benning. “There’s 30 or so of them.”

Representing the next generation, Bob Benning’s son Terry has returned to the business armed with a law degree, and will lead their planned export drive, while their daughters juggle their own careers with bookkeeping and quality assurance responsibilities. “We need another five people in the management side,” says Jas Benning, “The growth will be exponential. We see a very bright future.”

During the harvest season, individual blueberry bushes are picked every five to six days under ideal conditions, and harvesting runs nine hours a day, seven days a week. “We employ between 100 and 120 pickers during the season,” says Benning.

The peak season is November to February. By planting new blueberry varieties - bred mostly in Australia - to crop in March and April, and ultimately through to September, the Bennings aim to extend the berry into a year-round crop.

Recently, the Bennings have added substantially to their landholdings, scattered within a radius of 15-20km around Woolgoolga. They’re also planning to invest $3 million in a refrigerated packing facility.

Bob and Jas Benning’s father arrived in Woolgoolga in 1950, joining a wave of migrants to Australia from the Punjab area of northwest India that started in the late 1800s. As part of the British Empire, Indian citizens were free to explore opportunities here, before later Australian immigration restrictions were introduced.

Being farmers, they initially found work in the sugar cane fields of Queensland and the Clarence Valley of NSW.

Woolgoolga has two Sikh temples that have become hallmarks of this quiet town. Travellers along the Pacific Highway can’t fail to notice the temple, called Guru Nanak Gurdwara, with its golden domes, minarets and elephant. It’s a potent symbol of the strong cultural ties that define this hardworking community.