Just a few years back the Australian Citrus industry was facing ruin. Bumper crops were being allowed to fall off the trees and rot on the ground. A high Australian dollar was making exports unsustainable and the local market was simply flooded with excess fruit that retailers could not shift. In many growing areas citrus trees were being ripped out of the ground and replaced with grape vines.
How times have changed. Now some of those grape vines are being ripped up and replaced with new citrus trees. A weaker Australian dollar has turned around the prospects for the export of this Australian product and we are now struggling to meet demand. One of the reasons that citrus growers are smiling is because the growing middle class in China has discovered the joy of a glass of orange juice with their morning breakfast - and that is an ever expanding market.
The figures speak for themselves. Citrus exports for the 2017 season to the end of September were valued at $ 377 million, a 31 % jump on the same period last year, and well ahead of the figure for the 2016 full years $ 328 m.
There simply was no China market six or seven years ago. Now we are looking down the barrel of sending 80,000 tonnes there this season, and it is not just oranges. Mandarin sales have also taken off and are growing at a rate of between ten and fifteen percent each year.
There is the expectation that the Chinese cosmopolitan phenomenon of middle class growth still has a way to go and the growing world population augers well for the southern hemisphere. We are the warmer part of the world and this allows both a summer and winter crop season. The vast agricultural areas of Australia, South America and Africa seem destined to become the worlds breadbasket.
We need to have the mechanism in place to handle this opportunity and that includes ensuring that picking the crops do not encounter obstacles. Traditionally, our main workforce consists of backpackers who finance their Australian holiday by following the picking rotation as they move around the country. It is essential that both the tax regime that applies to their earnings and the availability of visas to enter this country do not deter this valuable aid to our export industry.
Our citrus industry is very aware of the need to keep pace with world tastes by consistently upgrading the varieties that we grow. The tarocco orange is a blood orange with Italian ancestry and both its looks, taste and amount of orange juice seem promising. This variety was not grown in this country but experimental acreage is attracting market enthusiasm.
It seems that citrus is returning as a growth industry. Every year there are many more mouths to feed as the world population grows. It is essential that no obstacles be allowed to prevent the Australian agricultural industry from meeting this challenge - and adding to our national prosperity !
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