The local berry farm is advertising that they're again open for business so I went along this morning to see what they had. There was the usual crowd of young mums there drinking coffee and eating cake while their kids played in the sand pit but there wasn't much activity among the vines.
I was disappointed that only the strawberries were ready for picking and they're all grown at ground level and it's too hard now for me to grovel around on my knees. The blackberries don't come on until mid-January so I'll have to wait until then. I consoled myself with a punnet of raspberries picked by someone else, which Marilyn will use for her Christmas Day fruit salad.
The local newspaper tells me that about 8000 pickers are expected to be here for the season, mostly from various Pacific Islands, and farmers are having trouble finding appropriate accommodation for them. Local councils are not co-operative and the state government is dragging its heels on finding solutions. One fellow is Deloraine has had his application for building new picker accommodation in council for several months with no action. Berries are a growing chunk of our agricultural industry here and it depends on enthusiastic workers from overseas.
No comments:
Post a Comment