THE Australian blueberry crop has quadrupled in production since 2007 with this year’s forecast record at 10,000 tonnes valued at $180m.
While the fruit is now grown from the Atherton Tablelands to Tasmania the majority come from the Northern Rivers, where president of the International Blueberry Organisation and treasurer of the Australian Blueberry Growers Association, Peter McPherson, said this season was one of the best in his 35 years’ experience, with plenty of wet in winter and a long dry spring to keep rust at bay. On the flip side cool nights into summer reduced yield on some plantations.
But overall production is exploding with so many new plantings. In fact, there is concern too much product will reduce margins. That future is almost here. By 2021 the Australian harvest is tipped to weigh 16,000 tonnes.
“Domestic consumption has been extra-ordinary,” said Mr McPherson, “with growth in the double digits, but so is production.”
Some growers are already looking beyond blueberries to other purple fruit rich in anti-oxidants, like blackberries, but Mr McPherson said there was no need to change focus. China loves our blueberries and wants more. Right now.
The peak harvest is around September - October, an ideal window for export opportunity. “And we are market ready,” said Mr McPherson, referring to protocols in place for fruit fly quarantine.
Australia’s genetically-tweaked high-bush blueberries are the global leader and yet remain stuck behind citrus, cherries, apples and – until recently – nectarines in the bureaucratic logjam that decides which commodities are allowed into the Middle Kingdom.
To help lobby their value the Australian blueberry industry has commissioned an independent Chinese firm to research market demand. The response to date has been ‘overwhelming’.
The final report is due at the end of December and an industry-wide meeting in the new year will look at those findings.
The industry has committed $1.5M to gaining re-access to Japan, having had that door closed to fruit fly in 2011. Australia previously serviced Japan for 13 years earning a top reputation.
For the moment local growers make good profits year ‘round, especially during the low production weeks of March and May when supply ebbs. Punnets at that time pike at $8 for 125g.
But at peak season – September and October – the price for poor fruit plummets to as low as $1.99 and margins tighten because picking labour is the largest component of cost.
Machine harvesting is a long way off, with varieties tough enough to handle machines more suited to high-chill growing regions in the Northern Hemisphere, although local breeding is on-going to rectify that.
Need to export
Blueberries to China make sense in that demand is there right now, as are protocols for the safe shipment of our blue fruit without infecting countries with either Queensland or Mediterranean varieties of fruit fly.
“We’ve been trying for eight years to get blueberries on the priority list,” says Mr McPherson, treasurer of the Australian Blueberry Growers Association. “But it seems to be apples over blueberries which is crazy. China is the world’s largest apple grower. Currently apple prices in China are 30 per cent below last year’s prices, so how is Australia going to get a Guernsey.”
The current protocol between Australian government bureaucrats and Chinese authorities allows only four commodities to be assessed at any given time and the process is a slow one.
“Three years ago we were invited to showcase fresh Australian grown blueberries and campaigned to push Chinese access for our blueberries,” said Mr McPherson. “They wanted them then, they want them today.”
