Attending this year’s annual conference was association chairman and local grower Grant Delves who was joined by special guest from America Donn Zea, CEO of the California Dried Plum Board. 

According Mr Delves, first and foremost on the agenda for Tuesday’s field-day was a discussion addressing one very important question, what to do about an overload of prunes? 

The question facing Griffith’s growers has arisen following forecasts of a higher than expected yield of the fruit for the 2018 harvest.

Mr Delves and Mr Zea insist that crop regulation will be necessary for Griffith’s prune growers to ensure a higher ‘quality over quantity’ of prune produce, with much of Tuesday’s conference set to focus on how local growers should regulate the crops. 

According to Mr Delves early forecasts show that 3000-4000 tonnes of dried prunes are expected to come out of Griffith in 2018, up from 1000 tonnes in 2017. 

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Crop regulation will be necessary for a higher quality of prunes to be achieved in the Griffith harvest Mr Delves said, as having fewer fruit on each tree will allow farmers to harvest later whilst leaving prunes on trees for longer will yield sweeter and larger fruit.  

Griffith’s industry supplies 50 percent of the prunes consumed in Australia, with most of the remaining supply being imported from South America which Mr Delves claims produce inferior quality fruit to Griffith and California.  

Although Australia and California are technically in competition over Australia’s domestic market for dried prunes, Mr Delves insists that the main source of competition facing prune growers comes by far from other dried and packaged fruits and even nuts. 

As such, Mr Delves said APIA  actively collaborates with the California Dried Plumb Board to innovatively increase global supply and demand for high quality dried prunes, over other dried fruit, and to market the health benefits and new options for prune consumption and use in cooking products. 

“In the past the industry has been separate and we are trying to close that gap, we can all differentiate and keep our own sourcing and our attributes but ultimately more people need to know about prunes and get and opportunity to enjoy them,” Mr Delves said. 

According to Mr Delves 2018 marks the first year the APIA have been able to invite Mr Zea to Australia for APIA’s Annual Conference after winning the Leadership In Agricultural Industries Fund administered by the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources in 2017. 

Note: This article has been amended to reflect the correct amount of prunes supplied to the Australian market.

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