Berry good prospects for growth on Tasmanian farms
Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture statistics put the combined farm value of strawberries, raspberries and blue berries at an estimated $17 million a year.
Raspberries & Blackberries Australia industry development manager, Jonathan Eccles says berries are already the top fruit category in the U.S, the U.K. and Norway.
He says while Australian consumption is much smaller, berry production has trebled in the last seven years, increasing from 500 tonnes in 2007 to 1,600 or 1,700 tonnes this year.
Mr Eccles says so far the growth in consumer demand is matching production, and there are no indications of over-supply. He says growth in markets is backed by better growing systems and new high yielding varieties.
"The growers are becoming a lot more sophisticated in their production techniques," he said. "The increase in production in these new genetics is just extraordinary. It's highly feasible that we could see berries as being an annual crop. The new genetics allow fruiting in spring as well as autumn and that gives you the all year-round production. And there's no reason why new varieties can't continue to develop with disease resistance and keep increasing production. But the genetic base of berries allows us to do a lot of exciting things in the plant breeding.
"When we think of raspberries we think of the red raspberry, but there's already a golden raspberry, and no doubt there'll be a black raspberry...
"But not a blackberry; it's a black raspberry. And there are various crosses. We've seen boysenberries and Loganberries. There are a lot of crosses that do happen.
"So it does expand the range, and it makes the product exciting because there's always something new. We've now seen the world's biggest berry marketer come into Australia and that certainly has helped expand the market."
Source: abc.net.au