Due to the recent bushfires, New South Wales’ iconic Bilpin Fruit Bowl has a hefty damage bill that it will struggle to pay.
Fruit grower Margaret Tadrosse said she lost 6000 fruit trees, as well as trellising, hail netting and other infrastructure in the fires which struck the district on the weekend before Christmas. She estimated the damage totalled $3 million.
When asked what are her options, Mrs Tadrosse said: "At the moment, nothing. You've never been able to insure fruit trees. And because I didn't specifically insure the hail netting for fire, it's not covered [by insurance]. In 35 years we've never had a fire through here. The hail netting was my insurance for the crop, because living in Bilpin we get a lot of hail storms."
She is calling for more assistance from the government, to help get her business back onto its feet. "We lost the trellising on all the apple trees and the irrigation, all the fencing around our property, pumps, signs, power boxes; some of it is insured but only minimally.”
"It's very close to $3 million out of pocket. We've been lobbying the government for grants for assistance to replace the hail netting and the trees, to help us out. There's a lot of farms, apple orchards, who lost trees, including Batlow, it's going to affect the industry big time."
Mrs Tadrosse said they lost around 40 per cent of their orchard. Even if they could afford to replace those trees, it would take years until they could make a profit from them again, she said.
Source: goodfruitandvegetables.com.au