Young producers

Last week both Kel and I went to Young at the invitation of the local Uniting church there to see how the church might respond to the devastation of the cherry harvest in the area. The cherry growers in the area have lost between 60%-70% of their crop. Of course this also has implications for the local economy with less money coming in from casual labour employed, and from the producers themselves.

The local congregation was keen to see how they might help, so after their Sunday morning service Kel and I had a great planning meeting with them.

On the Monday we organised, with  the Primary Industries section of Industry & Investment NSW, a meeting with service providers in the area to talk about what sort of support could be offered. It was agreed that most primary producers in the area were very busy harvesting what fruit or crops they could and were too busy for much else, but some meetings were planned for Jan.

How can you help - wherever you can buy cherries and other stone fruit from Young or Orange. The growers are finding that their markets for the fruit they have picked  is drying up because of the public perception that it's all spoilt. This is not the case so please support growers by purchasing their fruit when you can.

My thanks to Young church for not only wanting to do something useful but also with helping to organise all this.

Julie