As you all know by now I live and work in the “FOOD BOWL” of our state, this allows me the opportunity to talk to many producers, be it dairy, fruit or vegetable.
Lately I have had many conversations with Fruit growers, and it upsets me to learn what I have learnt.
With one orchardist we were speaking about how he had sent large crates of apples to QLD and the BIG SUPERMARKETS rejected 2 large crates as not being “RED” enough. So this man then has to pay a driver to collect these and take them to market for sale- this process culminating in a loss. We continued to talk on the subject of fruit with colour and what the big supermarkets demand (which in total is really what you will or will not buy). This man told me he sprays his fruit with water on hot days to make them redder. I chose to disagree with him, as I know Rudolf Steiner done experiments whereby he put a glass case around one green apple on a tree and watched. All the apples on that tree went red apart from the cased one. Rudolf encased the whole tree the following year and no apples turned red- thus proving that the casing blocked a certain ray from the sunshine which activates the colour. I suggested to the orchardist that maybe him spraying them caused a prism effect and reflected that necessary ray. I reminded him that two years back our season had very little sunshine and a lot of orchards were putting silver paper on the ground to reflect the sun for a good crop. I was informed that now they have YET ANOTHER CHEMICAL to turn them red.
MAYBE WE CAN CURB OUR CONDITIONING AND TASTE OUR FRUIT BEFORE MAKING A JUDGEMENT.
While speaking on this, another orchardist was telling me how the bees cross pollinate and he can have one branch with a new variety of fruit. He will then mark that branch and watch its fruit the next year. If it is the same he will bud (Graft) it and start a new variety. He had a delicious variety of nectarine that was so juicy and large but on growing these the BIG SUPERMARKETS would not buy them as they did not have enough colour (people would not buy them).
He said that to make a living you have to grow what the supermarkets dictate the consumer will buy, so out come the home grafted trees and in go the variety as dictated. Which may I say is bred by a specialist breeder and the orchardist must pay a royalty fee (say $6) per tree and must buy in the hundreds.
They are now looking at not selling to the orchardist but leasing each tree – so we wonder why our fruit is getting more expensive. I thought we did not have the Monsanto bullying here but this appears no different- they have spies at the markets to see who is selling a certain variety of something and if you have not purchased or leased trees you are sued.
I am sure after reading this you will have a new respect for our food producers and I hope you will go on taste not look.
Sharon