Juicing equipment to help Adelaide Hills apple, pear growers

The juicing equipment will ensure growers can salvage as much fruit as possible, reducing the financial impact across the whole industry.

A recent hailstorm which hit the Adelaide Hills caused significant damage to 95 per cent of apple and pear growing businesses, with an wholesale value of crop losses estimated at $32 million.

In the Adelaide Hills there are 810 hectares of apples and 100 hectares of pears grown.

The state government today announced it will immediately provide $500,000 towards the total cost of $1.6m to ensure Apple and Pear Growers Association and Ceravolo Orchads/Ashton Valley Fresh, can purchase and install the unit in time for the coming harvest.

Apple and Pear Growers Association chief executive officer Susie Green welcomed the announcement and said the equipment would provide a much-needed boost for many growers and the industry at a broader level.

“It provides growers with some certainty by providing an outlet for significant volumes of fruit at harvest time that won’t be able to be sold on the fresh market and would otherwise be written-off and removed at a complete loss,” she said.

“As growers make heartbreaking decisions around how best to salvage as much as they can of next year’s crop, the announcement is extremely timely.”

In 2016-17 the apple and pear sector generated $284 million in revenue, producing $33 million in food farm gate value.

Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Minister Leon Bignell said the government money was not about providing a grant to a single business, but instead throwing a lifeline to an industry and to an entire community.

“Growers are making decisions right now whether to strip their trees of the tiny apples and pears that were damaged a month ago,” he said.

“By giving them certainty that this Australian-manufactured machine will be in place by March, we are providing them with a potential revenue source.”