With the freezing, snowy, weather conditions this week, you’ll understand my fond memories of a fascinating trip I recently took with our soft fruit cooperative, Berry Gardens, down under to Australia!
The first and most significant thing we learned was that the prices growers received for their soft fruit was significantly higher than we receive in the UK, with Strawberries in late January retailing at about £6.70/kg and the growers/marketing organisations receiving as much as £5.60/kg. Even lower grade wholesale quality strawberries were selling at about £4.50/kg. Supermarket Raspberries were retailing at an amazing $35/kg [£19.60/kg].
I hope our UK supermarket retailers read this article!
The other significant lesson we learned was that the horticulture industry, which requires about 50,000 workers, had successfully negotiated with the Australian Government a seasonal agricultural worker scheme, not unlike SAWS, where workers from 8 underdeveloped Pacific islands can work for approved agencies or approved growers wishing to deal direct.
This encouraging, and successful scheme, is part of the Australian Foreign Aid programme, where their employment contributes to the economic development of these countries, with workers taking home life changing experiences and good pay, directly benefiting them, their families, and indirectly the countries involved.
The other source of horticultural worker is the visiting backpackers, who are able to get a visa for a second year quite easily if they can prove to have worked on farms for at least 80 days in their first year.
Both these examples demonstrate a government working with horticulture for the benefit of the economy.
I also hope someone from our Government will read this article too!
We can live with our sometimes unpleasant UK weather if we have a good availability of workers and good prices for our crops…