Apple and pear growers still counting cost of bush fires

The true cost of bushfires that ripped through Australia’s apple and pear growing regions has been revealed.

Smoked out: Apple Orchards in Batlow, NSW, on January 5, 2020.

APPLE and pear growers are asking for a $60 million government-funded lifeline to help rebuild after bushfires ripped through the nation’s main growing regions in January, leaving the industry with a $72 million damage bill.

Grower body Apple and Pear Australia has counted the true cost of the bushfires, whose path saw significant damage wrecked on Batlow, Australia’s apple growing capital, wiping out thousands of trees and reducing vital property and machinery to ash.

APAL has come up with a five-year plan to reboot not just the apple and pear industry, but the region and businesses intertwined with the growers there. Some families have farmed at the foothills of the Snowy Mountains for more than a century.

A submission has been lodged with the Federal Government for financial assistance replanting more than 283,000 trees. Underpinning the plan is the opportunity to capitalise on apples’ placement at the top of a list of horticultural products nearing tariff-free access to the Chinese market.

The submission reveals that 170ha of apple and pear orchards were damaged in the fires. To return to productivity, they would need to be cleared at a cost of $15,000 a hectare, any damaged netting replaced, trees propagated and irrigation and trellising built and installed.

Multiple meetings with the Federal and NSW Government has led APAL chief executive Phil Turnbull to become confident the industry would be supported. When asked why apple and pear growers should be given taxpayer support when Virgin Australia was just denied a federal government bailout, Mr Turnbull said the funding would support entire communities, not just individual growers.

“The difference is you’re propping up a whole community; people who work for the Batlow Fruit Company, the retailers in town who rely on the growers,” he said.

“This is a superb region to grow apples because of its elevation and position … This is absolutely pivotal for Batlow.”

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Kunama apple grower Michael Smart, who supplies the Batlow Fruit Company, said the funding was essential for the region to recover from the bushfires, and the added blow of coronavirus.

Mr Smart lost about 9 per cent of his 23ha orchard in the January fires and is keen to replant and secure a future for his son who has recently come home to join the family business.

“The climate is the best in NSW to grow fruit and the quality of the fruit coming out of the area is exceptionally good,” he said, adding good quality fruit was security for a good future.