On The Land
25 October, 2024
Grant boosts farm production
A CITRUS farm in Mutchilba has recently received a $200,000 grant to install a second de-greening facility, ensuring they can now keep up with a rapidly increasing production rate.
“This grant is very important to and appreciated by my business, it will help tremendously with cashflow and alleviate pressure on initial capital outlay,” farm owner Wim Van Niekerk said.
“It increases the whole scale of the business because we can do more, plant more and do it quicker and more effectively.”
Widem Farming is one of 20 Queensland agribusinesses who have benefitted from the total of $3.7 million given in the sixth round of the Rural Economic Development (RED) grants, receiving up to $200,000 each.
“With costs of everything going through the roof, growing your business has become a lot harder than it was a decade ago and requires you to do your due diligence more so than ever,” Wim said.
“It’s very important for us to build a facility that can handle the expansions of the farm and what we’ve planted.”
According to FreshView, de-greening is the process of removing the green colouring, or chlorophyll, from the skin of citrus fruit which is done by permeating measured amounts of ethylene gas into a temperature and humidity-controlled environment.
The fruit de-greens for three days after being picked. It is an important part of the citrus farming process, as it allows the fruit to be visually acceptable for selling.
“Essentially, it’s a big cold room that you run at 24 or 25 degrees, it’s a bit of trial and error as to what temperature you want to de-green them at, and then you inject a gas called ethylene into the room and that just brings out the colour of the fruit,” Wim said.
“And because our climate is very hot up here, the fruit doesn’t colour on the tree and needs these units to bring the colour out.
“It just turns the fruit from green, to yellow, red or orange or whatever colour it needs to be.
“It can’t ripen the fruit, it’s purely aesthetical and just changes the colour for the consumer, so they can see it’s a lemon, it’s yellow, they want to buy it.”
Widem Farming’s new facility will add another two de-greening rooms to the existing two that are on the farm currently.
“We need the extra room so we can get the fruit off the trees before they become over ripe and before we run into all sorts of other quality issues,” Wim said.
“We are running those de-greening rooms flat out. We never turn them off and I think this year we will just be able to get the crop off.
“We are pretty much at capacity, if not a bit behind, and for our grapefruit we physically can’t get the crop off next year if we don’t build the new facility, so at the end of the day we don’t really have a choice.
“We pick about 300 bins of lemons per day, grapefruit is around 500 a day, so you’ve got to de-green them and get them to the market.
“It’s all got to do with how quickly you can get the fruit from the tree into the consumers hands.”
The RED grant is a co-contribution grant of up to $200,000 that requires applicants to fund 50% of the project, however, in Wim’s case, he received the full $200,000.
It is also an opportunity to create a number of new employment availabilities on the farm.
“The cost of this project is 50% of $200,000 but they gave us the full $200,000 because it’s quite a big one. The rest of the costs that are needed, I will cover myself,” Wim said.
“It’s going to create around 65 jobs, just from the new facility. By building it, we’ve got the capacity to de-green all the fruit at a quicker rate and that will spool over into everything else down the supply chain.
“So, we’ll need 50-odd extra seasonal workers for six months of the year when we pick the crop and also tractor drivers, forklift drivers, truck drivers, extra packers and stackers, the whole lot.”
Expressions of interest applications for Round 7 of RED Grants close 22 November.
About Widem farming
Wim bought the ex-sugar cane farm in 2014 and started re-developing it, then in 2016, the planting of lime and lemon trees began.
The farm predominately grows lemons, as well as limes and grapefruit. There is 121 hectares of fruit planted with opportunity to develop another 280 hectares.
The farm mostly grows the 2PH seedless lemon variety, as well as seeded Eureka lemons on a smaller scale.
They also grow Tahitian limes and Star Ruby grapefruit.
Limes are picked 12 months of the year with busy and quiet periods fluctuated throughout.
Lemon season begins to heighten in February and grapefruit towards the beginning of March.
It takes approximately three years before a citrus tree will yield its first crop, which is generally small and of reduced quality.
A well-maintained citrus tree can produce fruit for 30-50 years.
“I will work on getting 25-27 years out of my trees before I start replacing them,” Wim said.
Widem Farming packs between 200-220 thousand cartons of lemons per season but that number is set to increase to 300-350 thousand once the younger trees, which are currently four years old, reach maturity.
They also pack 150-200 thousand cartons of limes and 80-100 thousand cartons of grapefruit per relative season.
Widem Farming markets their fruit through FAVCO in Brisbane.
FAVCO supplies around 30% of their crop to major retailers such as Coles, Woolies, Aldi and Drakes, among others.
The majority of the crop is then distributed into the food services industry, which consists of stocking hotels, bars, restaurants and other similar businesses.
Preliminary data gathered by the Mareeba Chamber of Commerce in the 2024 Tablelands Horticulture Profile showed that citrus farming contributed the most to the total gross value production of the area, with $170 million.
