In a bid to keep their fruit farms viable, some growers in southern NSW are encouraging consumers to pick their own fruit.
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00:00Is there a more wholesome sight than children picking apples with their grandparents?
00:14Not a screen to be seen in this Batlow orchard.
00:17I think it's really cool.
00:18There's a bunch of apples, I reckon they'll taste pretty good, sun's out, yeah it's really
00:24nice.
00:2512 year old Max Gaylard enjoys picking his own fruit.
00:29It can be fun, it can connect you to the environment and other people that do it and it can just,
00:36it health benefits you too.
00:38I thought apple trees were like big trees, not vines like this, yeah but it's really
00:45cool seeing them here.
00:49With his Queensland coasty grandsons visiting the Riverina Highlands, it's an opportunity
00:54for Kevin Chaplin to teach them about where their food comes from and get them off screens.
01:00Yes, it can be a challenge sometimes with the technical stuff but you get them outside
01:05and they turn into totally different kids and get out and explore and have lots of fun.
01:11Apple grower Greg Mullett and his family have been running their Pick Your Own farm for
01:1640 years near Batlow.
01:18And it's the Pick Your Own farm and roadside sales that helps keep his business afloat.
01:24We probably sell about 20% of what we grow but that would account for around 50% of our
01:31income.
01:32We're dealing direct with the public, we're not having any middlemen, there's no packing
01:35charges, of course you've got all your growing charges and everything else but you're dealing
01:40direct with people and allowing people to have really fresh produce.
01:48Greg Mullett has welcomed the Federal Government's direction for the Australian Competition and
01:53Consumer Commission, the ACCC, to conduct a year-long inquiry into Australia's supermarket
01:59sector.
02:00I don't think we'd be here as a business if we had to rely purely on either of the two
02:07large supermarkets.
02:09They're quite brutal in the way that they price their fruit.
02:13You have to be growing really high quality fruit, you have to be attaining very high
02:17yields and getting very good packouts.
02:19You can all do that but at the end of the day we are dealing with a perishable product
02:25and we're dealing with Mother Nature at the same time.
02:31About an hour and a half northwest of Batlow, a Pick Your Own strawberry farm on the urban
02:36fringe of Wagga Wagga is growing in popularity.
02:39It was started by Kylie and Michael Cashen and their two daughters as a family side hustle.
02:45We started in 2017 in November and we opened our gates up to the public.
02:52There was a lot of interest in coming to Pick Your Own so we decided to let people in and
02:57we haven't looked back since.
03:00On the day we visited, they were hosting their first country music festival, the Bidji Country
03:05Jam.
03:06Their strawberry farm is becoming a major tourist and entertainment attraction for Wagga
03:13Wagga.
03:14Hello!
03:15Hello!
03:16Despite the diverse income streams their strawberry farm produces, Michael and Kylie are still
03:21keeping their off-farm jobs.
03:25If you want to do it to make money, don't.
03:28If you want to do it because you want to see a difference in your community, then do it.