00:00Yes, I was one of the early growers. I started 40 years ago.
00:06And what got you into it so early?
00:09CSIRO released this pistachio tree, a new crop suitable for the Murray Valley, the hot
00:17arid conditions with supplies of irrigation water and recommended this crop. I together
00:24with a small number of other growers started it. We had a lot of troubles for the first
00:29decade or perhaps a bit more. We ran into diseases, didn't know how to farm them properly,
00:37did all of that. However, in the last 25 years, we've mastered all that and we now produce
00:44pistachios of the highest quality, worldwide, world accepted yields. It's a profitable business.
00:54So in the last decade, a lot more growers are joining us and have been planting more
00:59pistachios over the last decade.
01:01So it took a bit of determination from you and the other growers to stick through it,
01:06through those early years of getting used to it. What's the key to growing a good tree?
01:15A lot of experience and understanding how to grow pistachios in the Murray Valley under
01:20Australian conditions, Australian soils, Australian conditions. And that's taken a long time
01:28to do that. We've had lots of support from our international pistachio growers and other
01:33countries, particularly in Iran and in California. But you have to farm them differently in Australia
01:39and that, I think, is the biggest lesson we learned in that difficult first 15 years.
01:44And how do you farm them differently? Does it have to do with water or where you plant them?
01:50More to do with the nature of the soils. Very simply, we need less water more often than
02:00they do in California and Iran because of the relatively shallow soils that we use.
02:07We have.
02:09And so where has the bulk of the industry been established in Australia and how did
02:14it, how were you able to sort out that that was the best place?
02:19By chance, I think. The original recommendations was a lot wider area than we now farm, but
02:27more or less Swan Hill in the east to Wakery in the west along the Murray River. There's
02:36some in Griffith. There's some Pea Binger at Tilopia Downs. There were orchards planted
02:45in northern New South Wales. They have not been successful because of summer rainfall
02:51creating fungal problems. So roughly along the Murray is what has proved successful.
02:59And why was last season so good?
03:02A combination of good seasonal conditions, but more particularly, it was the emergence
03:09of the young trees that have been planted in the last decade are now starting to produce
03:15and that's what's driven up that extra thousand tonnes over the previous record is basically
03:20young trees now coming into production.
03:22Yeah, because that thousand tonnes is like 30% more approximately than the previous record,
03:29huh?
03:30Correct.
03:31And so did that lead to a price fall in Australia this year?
03:36There was a price fall this year in Australia, but that had nothing to do with the Australian
03:40crop. It was more to do with world supply. We're a commodity that has to compete with
03:47Iran and California and we have to follow their price levels. In the same vein for 25
03:56crop prices will go up.
03:59And do Australian producers only supply the Australian market at the moment?
04:04No, this year we started to do some, we've been doing some exports for a little while,
04:09but the volumes of export increased this year because of the record crop. We won't
04:14do so many in 25 crop, but we will do a lot more from 26 crop onwards. From 26 crop onwards,
04:22the new supply of trees will completely satisfy the domestic market. So we are working towards
04:29firstly expanding the domestic market by promoting Australian pistachios, but also we are looking
04:35to continue with the export markets that we have developed already.
04:40And is China the biggest export market you've got?
04:43Yes, it is.
04:45And so were there some pretty lean times for you, Chris? Because as you say, it takes a long
04:50time for a pistachio tree to grow. And so were you struggling for a while, but now you're pretty
04:56happy you're stuck with it?
04:57I'm extremely happy that I stuck with it. I must say that probably in the mid-late 90s,
05:05I thought of pulling all the trees out and planting them with Chardonnay. I'm very glad
05:10I didn't do that and persevered. That first 15 years was very difficult because of learning how
05:16to grow them. And we've had a couple of bad seasons. The El Nino year of 2011 gave us big problems,
05:24but we've managed to overcome them. And in farming, there are always good seasons and
05:29bad seasons, but we can now consistently do good seasons. We'll have the odd bad year,
05:36but we can do well and we know how to do it. And the industry is not unique, but is a little bit
05:44special in that because of the hardships of the early growers, the cooperation between growers
05:51in the pistachio industry is very, very high. We freely exchange information between all of
05:59our growers and they grow with us. So there's now about 50 pistachio growers in Australia
06:07and they all cooperate, work together, market together. And collectively, we're all learning
06:14from each other and we get on well together, which is somewhat unusual in agriculture.
06:25Because naturally you would think that the original ones would kind of want to protect
06:30their turf and not have too many people coming in and producing, but you welcome
06:34more and more people doing it. Yeah. We've long seen the need for critical mass.
06:41If you go back not long, not many years, we could only supply the Australian supermarkets with
06:49Australian pistachios for some months of the year and not a whole 12 months. So the supermarkets
06:55would stock Australian pistachios, then they start using imported and our next crop came along
07:01and we would want to supply them, but they've got carryover of stock. But now we can supply
07:07the major supermarkets 12 months of the year. Australian consumers can regularly purchase
07:13Australian pistachios year round. Sure, there's still imported pistachios in the market and
07:18frankly, there probably always will be some. And Chris, good stuff. Just one final question,
07:23most important question from my team here. They love their pistachios. They want to know
07:27from someone like you, what's the best dish you've had with pistachios in it?
07:33I make this fantastic pomegranate and pistachio cake. It is with lime and it's fantastic.
07:40Okay, well, we'll expect one at the ABC studios next week. Thanks so much for having chat to us,
07:47Chris. And yeah, good on you for sticking with something that you're passionate about
07:51and making a success of it.
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