Orchardists give up

Slumping apple prices mean Wairarapa growers will cut up orchards for firewood
Bottom of the barrel apple prices are "a total catastrophe' for Wairarapa growers and spell the end for nearly all in the industry.
An international apple glut means Masterton orchardist Hop Eglinton, and most like him, will be cutting up his apple trees and selling them for firewood.
"The last two or three weeks have put the kibosh on the industry as far as I am concerned," Mr Eglinton said.
He said the people that are going to be worst hit from his orchards going under the saw are the workers that rely on the seasonal work.
By Mr Eglinton's estimate, only one or two out of the 26 orchardists in Wairarapa will be able to weather the storm.
"If you wanted to carry on you would have to find about $200,000 to carry you through the next season," he said.
He had to lay off his permanent staff last week and is now looking for employment for them elsewhere.
If export prices fail to reach the costs of production growers will also face massive "claw-back" bills for the shortfalls.
One carton of apples costs around $17 to produce and on current market prices will return only around $6-7 maximum for growers. An average size producer in the Wairarapa exports around 20,000 cartons.
The outlook is "rotten to the core" and the growers will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars each, Mr Eglinton said.
"We just won't produce anymore. We'll turn the trees into firewood."
He said the extraordinarily bleak outlook for this apple season has just made the decision to get out of apples easier.
Mr Eglinton's son, Hamish, has an orchard just down the road and he is resigned to the inevitable and has opted to go back to school to study law.
"I can't see a single grower that won't be hitting the wall, to be honest," he said.
Andrew Wright, who now leases his land to growers and has been in the growing industry for 15 years, says the slump will be hard to stomach for most growers.
He said the Australian's protectionist stance has also damaged the apple seller's prospects for this season's harvest.
Huge oversupply from southern hemisphere apple-producing countries has seen them undercutting each other in the European market. Compounding the problem were the dozens of small New Zealand exporters shipping apples to Europe and driving the prices down even further.
"Last year was a bad year, this year will be disastrous," Mr Wright said.
One of the most popular apple varieties is Braeburn, which constitutes 30 to 40 per cent of the New Zealand harvest. Prices this year will be around half that of last year, amounting to a $7 to $10 loss a carton, which could break many growers.
Mr Wright said many orchardists are smarting from the Australian's refusal to take New Zealand apples even though it hurts consumers in their own country.
"The is a market with 20 million affluent people within easy reach. I was over there not long ago, and their apples are terrible," Mr Wright says.
He says the Australians have long been claiming to protect themselves from fireblight, but Mr Wright said it has long been proved the disease cannot be transferred through fruit.
"It's a total catastrophe, the outlook at the moment is all doom and gloom," Mr Wright said.
Hop Eglinton could only attribute a small portion of the blame to the embattled Australians.
"Typical Australians ? the under-armed sods," he said. "I can almost sympathise with them. All it would mean is it would destroy their market and it won't do much for us. The issue is the survival of the whole apple industry," he said.
His attitude to this latest development was more of resignation and relief.
"I feel the whole world has been lifted off my shoulders. The decision has been made for me."