See more: Love of avos pushes farmgate prices high
AUSTRALIAN farmers are in the box seat to tap into what is expected to be enormous Asian demand for avocados in the next five years.
So says Southern Queensland producer Daryl Boardman, who has just returned from a delegation to China, Korea and Japan.
“Following free trade agreements, the hope is we’ll see Australian avocados in Japan in the next few years while in China they are to be the next cab off the rank after stonefruit import deals are locked in,” he said.
“These are markets where diets are changing and where consumers are already aware of the health benefits of the avo.
“In Korea, consumption has risen 100 per cent over the past year.
“They are huge markets - we only need to go to Shanghai and we have the population of Australia - and we will look to target the high end.
“We’ll trade on our the clean, green image - that’s the key to Asia.”
With his wife Sally, Mr Boardman has 2500 mostly Hass avocado trees in production at “Sunnyspot Farm” near Toowoomba, plus a share in a further 40ha at Childers.
The Boardmans also have a packhouse on farm, taking fruit from 30 other growers, all of which is marketed through grower group The Avolution.
This harvest, their crop was down 80 per cent, due to big hail storms last November.
“Next year’s crop is looking good as we’ve had reasonable storms - not an abundance of rain but enough,” Mr Boardman said.
“Some of the younger trees ‘over flowered’ and dropped more than we would have liked to see but we still have a very decent fruit set overall.”
He said with ‘excellent’ prices holding for the past three years and the opportunities for growth in demand, things could not be more optimistic in the avocado game.
