Margaret Tadrosse and her husband Simon are slowly rebuilding their pick-your-own fruit business at Bilpin in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.
The Black Summer fires destroyed fruit trees and infrastructure valued at $3 million.
Kilometres of nylon hail netting used to protect ripe fruit from bats and birds still hang in tatters across the 26-hectare farm.
Of the 15,000 different trees on the property, just a few thousand survived the fires, including fig trees which are starting to bear fruit.
“Our problem is the netting hasn’t been replaced, so as soon as the figs start to get a little bit bigger and get a little bit of sweetness to them, the bats and the birds will come in," Ms Tadrosse told SBS News. “They just eat everything, so we are desperate to get the netting up."
But $70,000 worth of new netting, bought with $900,000 state and federal farm recovery grants, sits in bags on the driveway.
“It's been sitting here for about eight weeks but unfortunately we can't get any contractors to come and put it up. It’s specialist work and we cannot do it ourselves,” Ms Tadrosse said.
Just a few thousand trees survived last summer's bushfires. Source: SBS
“If we lose this crop [of figs], there's no point continuing. You can't just go year after year without your crop.”
Ms Tadrosse grew up in Eastwood, in Sydney’s north-west, and is of Lebanese heritage. Her husband migrated from the north of Lebanon with his family as a child. Together, they started the Bilpin Fruit Bowl 35 years ago.
The couple recently took a delivery of 5,000 new fruit trees but without labourers were forced to replant the orchard themselves.
“We've put in more than 3,000 cherry trees, plus peaches and plums,” Ms Tadrosse said. “The trees arrived probably about six weeks ago and a whole group of friends came up every weekend to help us plant.”
Driving past the stumps of blackened trees, she recalled the devastating fires that swept through the week before Christmas.
“I've been in the [rural fire] brigade for over 30 years and this is probably the worst fire I've seen come through here,” she said. “It was pretty scary, how fierce it was. This was a very, very angry fire and it was leaving nothing in its path.”
Fires caused more than $3 million dollars of damage at Bilpin Fruit Bowl. Source: Supplied
“It’s just heartbreaking because you put so much time and effort into producing, and it's your livelihood. You look at the damage and think ‘how am I going to come back from this?’”
Businesses devastated
An Ernst & Young report released last week predicts Australia will experience a shortage of up to 26,000 workers needed to pick and pack fruit and vegetables over the next six months due to the impacts of COVID-19.
Many fire-affected rural producers in Victoria face similar barriers to recovery.
Milusa and Kevin Giles in Victoria’s East Gippsland lost a wildflower plantation during last summer's fires.
“Clearing the paddocks was very emotional, especially for Kevin because he planted every one of those 14,000 trees,” Ms Giles said.
“It’s devastating, really, because in spring all those bushes would be blooming and currently there’s just grass and dirt. It’s very, very sad.”
Over 25 years the couple built up their small business, The Wildflower Bunch. Their native Australian and South African trees supplied 1,200 flower posies each week to a Melbourne wholesaler.
Friends recently donated 400 wildflower trees to help the couple restore their burned fields and Mr Giles is now replanting. A further 4,000 new trees arrive in October, paid for with state and federal government bushfire recovery grants.
But without farm labour, the family faces a daunting task in the coming months.
“We have achieved a lot but there is so much more to achieve,” Ms Giles said, sitting in the farm shed where they are living while the house is rebuilt.
Still, she remains resilient.
The farm supplied native flowers for weddings and funerals. Source: Supplied
“Our hearts were absolutely broken but I migrated from Czechoslovakia to Australia with my family in 1969, so I do know the struggle of rebuilding a life.”
“That gives me the strength to know that Kevin and I can work through this and come out the other end once again, even more resilient than we were before.”
Workforce shortage
Emma Germano is also farming in Gippsland, growing cauliflower, broccoli and potatoes. Her 100-hectare property at Mirdoo North also fattens 1,200 lambs each year.
Ms Germano is the vice president of the Victorian Farmers Federation.
“The workforce shortage across the agriculture sector is affecting many different commodities,” she said.
“Horticultural crops need to be picked, and sheep shorn, and the flow-on effect is now impacting farmers in various bushfire recovery regions.
"Victoria is coming into our grain harvest which requires workers who often will start up in Queensland and move down through New South Wales and then into Victoria, but not this year."
Ms Germano’s grandfather emigrated to Australia from Sicily as a fruit picker in the 1930s and later bought the family property which Emma still runs.
Farmer Emma Germano also runs a produce store. Source: Supplied
Farm-grown produce is also sold in a retail store called I Love Farms and demand for locally grown vegetables has grown during the pandemic, she said.
The farm employs six seasonal workers from Vanuatu who are due to arrive in December but state border closures and travel bans are impacting many overseas workers hoping to find a job in the spring season.
“Australia would ordinarily have about 140,000 working holiday makers in the country, and of those, at least 50,000 would be working in agriculture," Ms Germano said.
“And we know that total number [of working holiday makers] is less than 70,000 at the moment. Victoria alone could be facing a shortfall of 15,000 workers by December.”
Emma is passionate about the importance of workers from overseas in Australian agriculture and hopes a solution can be worked out soon.
"Australia has always relied on migrants to pick our fruit and vegetables," she said.
"A diverse workforce is the best workforce because it's going to create sustainability."
The federal government has restarted the Pacific Labour Scheme and Seasonal Worker Program and extended some visa categories to try and address the shortfall. It has also encouraged school leavers in Australia to take up farm work this year.
