If anyone needs proof that an avocado a day will keep the doctor at bay, look no further than Duranbah horticulturalist Graham Anderson.
Smashed Avo on toast is the go-to breakfast for this 80 year old and his presence, full of energy and enthusiasm, is infectious. This is one reason why he is having so much influence on an emerging Chinese desire to consume the fleshy fruit.
Trouble is, with Australia currently out of the running to supply avocados, the product that is allowed - from New Zealand and Kenya - is not good enough to convince the Chinese population to embrace this healthy option.
"Australian quality is like no other," he insists. "Only avocados from Australia are good enough to build a new market.
"If we can get everyone in China to eat just one avocado a year, there won't be enough produce to go around," he said. "And we know, and they are beginning to understand, that Australia has the best avocados.
"Scott Morrison insulted the Chinese government and now we have trade embargoes but Penny Wong has done a lot of good work. I truly believe all it will take is a kind word from Anthony Albanese and we will be right back in there."
A third generation farmer from the Far North Coast, on red soil near Kingscliff, Mr Anderson recently returned from the horticultural province of Yunnan in December, yet another visit to China where he is working with a company to promote the avocado as a horticultural industry within the great middle kingdom, using seedlings and tissue culture technology developed in Australia.
"The Chinese love and respect anything out of Australia," he says. "And they especially respect our biosecurity policy. It is strict and we have a good reputation. They love that."
Mr Anderson has been working with Dr. Jayeni Hiti-Bandaralage who invented a better method of tissue culture procedure as part of her PhD under Prof Neena Mitter at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, within the University of Queensland.
"The maristem technique we use is more difficult in the first instance, but less expensive in the long run," Mr Anderson said, explaining how the growing tip is carefully peeled back to expose a chlorophyll and virus-free gel that can be bisected into 500 plants; first reared in agar before eventually grafting Hass budwood onto the Kid and Velvick variety rootstock.
These "Ideolated" growing tips are capable of cell division and help grow a rootstock that is free from anthracnose and other diseases.
"We have the only licence from the University of Queensland to do this work," Mr Anderson said and the eight-year relationship. "It has been a collaborative project."
In China Mr Anderson is promoting the fruit through cooking classes, similar to the way he promoted the product in Australia during the early 1970s. Quality chefs created delicious dishes with avocado as a primary ingredient and the concept worked.
"It is important that we pressure their government to open the market," he says. "I call it "avocado diplomacy". And I am a walking, talking example of the health benefits of eating avocados!
"We can't develop a market on existing supply into China and I want to get everyone eating avocados."
Mr Anderson's relationship with China is aided by the fact that Anderson Horticulture is a multi-generational enterprise, begun on the farm in 1905 by Alexander Anderson. There remain avocados on the Duranbah property that were planted 75 years ago and are still highly productive through good pruning and management - with particular attention paid to soil health, including calcium content.
"The soil should supply everything the plant needs. We only use foliar sprays as a band-aid treatment," he says.
"I remember when those trees were planted," he says, pointing across a laneway. "I was about five years old when my father planted them. I recall it because I had just tried smoking cigarettes. I started young."
At 80 years old now, Mr Anderson has spent half his life free of nicotine, but still craves a smoke every day.
The fourth generation of Andersons remain involved in the family business, as an off-shoot, with Graham's engineer son of the same name, but called "Mac", growing a similar partnership in avocados with Sri Lanka, while David has recently graduated from university with a masters degree in data analysis and plans to be involved in expanding the Anderson enterprise.
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