AUSTRALIA is experiencing a bumper cherry season, but farmers are missing out as supermarket heavyweights and an abundance of fruit push down prices.
The high Australian dollar is also making it hard for farmers to compete in export markets, reports The Australian Financial Review.
After years of flood and drought, conditions have been ideal this season, particularly in the Central West of NSW, but consumers and retailers appear to be the biggest beneficiaries.
"If you're a grower, yes, it can be very difficult to get good-quality cherries, high volumes and high prices – the three don't usually sit together," said Tristan Harris, director of buying and marketing at retailer Harris Farm.
"In the last couple of years the cherry crops have been smashed, and then prior to that we were in drought. More people have been planting, there's been plenty of water and therefore there's a lot of fruit around."
Mr Harris said retail prices varied considerably. "I can go out and buy cherries for $6 a kilo, but that's not the cherries people are going to want to put on the Christmas table," he said.
"By the time you get to Christmas they'll be more like $20 a kilo for the absolute premium range."
Chairman of horticulture at NSW Farmers Association, Peter Darley, said this season was one of the best in years for cherries, but the future of farming was under threat.
"There hasn't been any rain in harvesting time and there's some excellent quality cherries being harvested around the Orange [NSW] area," Mr Darley said.
"We've seen a downward trend with the prices of all fresh produce and that's certainly been the case with cherries. A lot of it's been caused by the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths pushing down the prices."
Mr Darley said both the federal government and opposition talked about the need for food security, but failed to address issues that would send food production offshore.
"With these low prices, you cannot keep family farmers in the game," he said. "It's inevitable that the bubble will burst, and all the produce will come from overseas.
"If politicians can see the price of produce remaining low, that's good for the consumers and they're the ones that vote." He said farmers were struggling to compete in the export market. "Certainly the high dollar has compounded the issues, making us uncompetitive with the likes of Chile and other South American countries," he said.
A Woolworths spokeswoman said 96 per cent of its fresh produce was sourced from Australia.
"Woolworths works closely with our suppliers to see farmers get a fair return for their product," she said. "Woolworths will continue to focus on providing our customers with more Australian-grown produce.
"The Australian fruit and vegetable market is large and diverse, growers have a variety of options in who they supply produce to other than major supermarket chains."
Cherry grower Guy Gaeta, from Orange, said he was often forced to sell below the price of production.
"I'm staring at about half a tonne of cherries as we speak. I should be happy to look at that, but you're really not," he said.
"We would be better off leaving most of them in the ground to keep the prices up. Every year, everything goes up – power, wages – but our produce goes backwards."
