But the 17-year-old now has a harsh reality to face – his profession might not be around by the time he hits 20.

Daniel’s father has been growing pumpkins on his Murrami property for 35 years and the son wants to one day take over the farm.

But with the family business currently growing pumpkins at a loss, the question they have begun to ask is how much longer can they go on?

“You can’t survive on that,” Daniel said.

“We’ve just put our sheep on to 70 acres of butternut because we make more money from fattening the lambs up than harvesting the pumpkins.”

While the Panazzolos are lucky to be able to sustain their business through sheep and rice as well, Daniel said other growers weren’t as fortunate.

“If we only grew pumpkins we’d have to think twice about continuing,” he said.

“If the prices continue like this we’ll probably get out of pumpkins completely or just grow them to feed the sheep.”

The Panazzolo’s story is just one of hundreds around Griffith with the supermarkets continuing to pay growers less than production costs for their fruit and vegetables.

Local growers finally broke their silence in Monday’s The Area News to expose the control the big two supermarkets exercise over the fruit and vegetable market.

Wholesale merchant Ross Grillo also made the shocking statement on Monday that if they didn’t start getting a fair price, there would be no fruit and vegetable growers left in three years.

Daniel, who is the only one of his friends who has chosen to stay on the land, said Mr Grillo was spot on.

“I love working on the farm, it’s what I’ve always done and I wouldn’t know how to do anything else but if things keep going the way they are I’ll have to look for a job somewhere else,” he said.

“We’re getting 15 cents for the pumpkins and it costs 22 cents to get it into the markets.

“We need 35 cents just to break even and an additional 22 cents for packaging and freight, but there’s no way we’re getting anywhere near that.

“I always wondered why my friends never wanted to stay on the farm and now I know why.”