Fruit hit by laws

By Monique Ebrington
Kookaberry Strawberry Farm in Wandin is a family-run business with a focus on strawberries, blackberries, boysenberries, loganberries and raspberries.
Orchard owner Frances Caltieri employs seven to 10 pickers for around six months of the year.
She said the laws would have an adverse affect on the industry and would force a lot of farmers out of the trade.
“It will affect the industry and it will affect the industry in a big way,” Ms Caltieri said.
“I hope they’re prepared for the price of fruits and vegies to go up, because that’s where it’s going to directly affect.”
She said the new industrial relations laws would put even more pressure on owners of small orchards.
“We’re a small family-run business. They are pushing out the little people, we’ve been here for 32 years now and it’s getting harder and harder each year,” she said.
Orchard owner Len Rayner is also concerned about the new laws.
He owns Rayner’s Stonefruit Orchard in Woori Yallock that is set across 40 acres and grows 20 different varieties of stone fruit. Mr Rayner said that while he runs a “one-man operation” if he was employing people the new laws would shut him down.
“The profit margins are so low at the moment for fruit that it would probably wipe me out,” Mr Rayner said.
“It’s a one-man show. We employed people in the past, but, at the moment we’re not.
“I think the problem is that city people are setting rules that are impossible for the country people to follow.”
Member for McEwen Fran Bailey said the industrial relations laws would not only cut business profitability but also drive up prices for consumers.
Ms Bailey is particularly concerned for cherry growers who have to work with a highly perishable crop that is picked and sorted by hand over about eight weeks during summer.
“When the cherries are ready to be picked, they must be cut from trees within hours, not days,” Ms Bailey said.
She said the Federal Government’s work regulations struck at the flexibility needed for primary producers. Ms Bailey said the impact of the new laws on wages, effective from January 1, have been estimated by the cherry industry alone at 30 per cent.