Dried vine fruit industry wears the cost of a tough season

Dried vine fruit growers are wearing the cost of a hot, windy and wet season, with a total crop size predicted to be significantly lower than last year’s.

Dried fruit processors have thrown their support behind growers by compensating them for record water prices during the 2019-20 season.

HEAT, wind and rain have taken their toll on Australia’s dried vine fruit industry, which is predicting a 23 per cent contraction in this year’s crop compared to last year.

Harvest is complete but many growers have another few weeks left drying their fruit before crops could be weighed and tallied and an industry-wide figure calculated.

But Dried Fruit Australia chair Mark King estimated this year’s crop would be about 12,000 tonnes, well down on last year’s 15,600 tonnes.

“Hot weather, high water prices and rain during the season, and then again at the end of the season, has knocked a bit of fruit off each time. It’s a bit disappointing but it was a hard year,” the Pomona grower said.

The small crop is a blow for the industry, whose product is in hot demand.

“The processors are screaming for it. We have orders coming in that we won’t be able to supply,” Mr King said.

“Coronavirus has got people back baking and that’s what dried fruit is all about, it’s a snack food and for fruit cakes and plum puddings.”

In an unprecedented move, Australia’s three biggest dried fruit processors — Australian Premium Dried Fruits, Murray River Organics and Sunbeam — agreed late last year to compensate growers for their skyrocketing water bills, offering them an extra $200 a tonne in addition to last year’s price of about $2500 a tonne.

The move has boosted the industry’s confidence after years of contraction with many smaller operators exiting farming all together or converting to more lucrative crops such as almonds or table grapes.

Australian Premium Dried Fruits chief executive Craig Greenwood said the industry needed to work collaboratively to keep growers on their farms. “If we don’t have economies of scale, it affects us all. There’s a very good future in dried fruit, if investment is made in the right varieties and the property is set-up properly.”

Mr Greenwood said global demand for Australian dried fruit was very strong.

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