When the Irish poet WB Yeats wrote about plucking “the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun”, he obviously hadn’t been battling to balance the books after a hard year’s work in the orchard.
Certainly the returns for today’s Irish growers are far from golden. A continuing squeeze on prices, escalating production costs and an avalanche of cheap imports has left some questioning whether there is a future in the business. It is accepted that for the industry to prosper, new strategies are needed to improve fruit quality and yields, develop new added value products and strengthen marketing - the problem is persuading hard-pressed growers to fund the necessary investment. Unlike other sectors of Irish farming, there is no cheque in the post from Brussels for the apple industry.
For Northern Ireland, which has a long - and lucrative - tradition of apple growing, the industry is much more important than in the Republic, and more than twice as large. Correspondingly, the problems are more acute. Even the quality and image of the Bramley, a variety that accounts for over 90 per cent of Northern Ireland’s production, has come under attack, with claims that because of changing consumer tastes and a lack of promotion it is losing its prime position in the market.
The industry is concentrated almost exclusively in Armagh, appropriately known across Ireland as the Orchard County. Reflecting the difficulties on prices and returns, the number of growers has fallen to around 200 in the past five years, a drop of more than 50, while over the past decade, the total apple crop has declined to 1,800 hectares, a fall of almost 400.
More worrying, according to Graeme Cross, top fruit advisor in the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, both growers and orchards are showing their age. A third of the Armagh orchards were planted over 30 years ago, he says, while almost a quarter of the growers are now in their late 60s, with few young people entering the industry, apart from family members.
Replacing ageing orchards involves substantial investment, and with state support available only for promotion and marketing, growers have to foot the bill. In such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that, according to the latest statistics, just over a third say they intend to undertake new planting and grubbing out over the next few years.
For the industry, there is a price to be paid. A survey of the sector by PricewaterhouseCoopers points out that older orchards have lower yields, lower quality apples and higher input costs in terms of chemicals and labour. “At a time when the retail and processing sector is demanding higher quality product,” it says, “the ageing profile of orchards is less able to meet this demand.
“Consequently, the income being generated from existing holdings will steadily decline on the basis that few new plantings have occurred.” Some holdings, it warns, will become unviable at current market prices.
Despite the difficulties, average yields can be as high as 14.6 tonnes per hectare, even from trees planted between 25 and 35 years ago. According to Cross, the primary crop is worth around £5 millon, but returns from processors can vary greatly, depending on yields. In 2001, for instance, growers got as little as £75 a tonne, while in subsequent years the price has ranged from £125-£280 a tonne.
Production at the 10 main processing companies in Northern Ireland generally involves basic slicing and dicing for pie fillings, with most of the output exported to the UK. “Growers are under constant price pressure from the processors,” says Cross, “as they, in turn, are under pressure from the multiples they supply. It can lead to strains and tensions.”
In a bid to promote a more harmonious working relationship, the Fruit Industry Federation (FIF) was recently established to provide a forum for the various interests involved - growers, processors, chemical suppliers and so on. Its task is to agree a co-ordinated approach by the industry to replace the bickering and finger pointing and ensure a fair return for all the stakeholders.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers report underscores the magnitude of that task. It talks of a lack of trust in the industry and of “perceptions that overcapacity and competitive rivalry between processing companies are driving down prices to growers and undermining the sustainability of the entire sector”. As a first step, it says, the FIF needs to improve communications across the sector and rebuild trust and co-operation between grower and processor.
It also urges initiatives on new value-added products, organics, cider/juice and other apple-based or complementary lines, as well as a search for new export outlets. “The limited customer base in the UK and the Irish Republic, already highly competitive, offers little scope for significant development,” it claims.
But it is the report’s criticism of Bramley, the mainstay of the industry, which has come as a shock. “Processors have stated that the quality of the Bramley grown locally is inconsistent,” it says, and adds: “Where Bramley was once considered to be a premium product, lack of promotion and changing consumer trends have undermined its premium position in the market.”
To counteract this, it recommends the industry fund a marketing campaign for the Bramley, “to re-establish its quality image and create a point of differentiation in both the processed and fresh markets”. The industry, it adds, should examine the feasibility of co-operating with the English Apples and Pears marketing campaign to promote the Bramley on a UK wide basis.
South of the border, in the Irish Republic, it is access to markets and the flood of imports that are the main concerns. According to Harry O’Brien, fruit specialist with Teagasc, the farm research and development service, there are just over 40 commercial apple growers in the Republic spread across five counties, Dublin, Louth, Tipperary, Waterford and Kilkenny, with the main varieties being Bramley, Jonagold and Elstar.
The crop of 630ha is split into three categories - eating varieties, culinary and cider apples, grown on contract for Bulmers. While the latter offers a guaranteed return, the others struggle to find outlets, he says. “The big supermarket chains aren’t particularly interested because our growers can’t provide the volume of apples they need. In any event, we can’t compete with the huge flood of cheap imports that’s coming in.”
With livelihoods at stake, as well as a crop with a farm-gate value estimated at €2.6m, the growers are fighting back. Increasingly, they are creating their own outlets by selling apples and apple juice direct to the public through farmers’ markets and on-farm enterprises.
Almost 100 such markets have now been established across the country. And in a welcome show of support, the authorities in the Republic and Northern Ireland have got together to publish a joint guide to the location of the markets and the dates on which they are held.
“These markets are important,” says Brendan Smith, a minister in the Republic’s Department of Agriculture, “because not only do they offer producers a source of new customers, they also provide them with new ideas through direct contact with consumers and through talking to other producers.”
Teagasc specialist O’Brien sees diversification as the key to the industry’s future. Con Traas, chairman of the Irish Apple Growers’ Association, proves the validity of that analysis. The son of Dutch parents, who moved to Ireland in the late 1960s and began apple growing in County Tipperary, he now operates a thriving business that combines 30 acres of orchards as well as other fruit with an on-farm shop, an award-winning apple juice enterprise and a camping and caravan park.
At The Apple Farm, located between Cahir and Clonmel, he employs a staff of 20, plus another 10 seasonal workers, and grows a range of varieties, from Elstar and Cox’s Pippin to Bramley, Discovery and James Grieve.
While orchards in the Republic are much younger than in the North - a third have been planted less than a decade ago - and yields from some significantly higher, the problem of depressed prices and poor returns is common to both parts of the country. According to Traas, the growers’ body, which is affiliated to the powerful Irish Farmers’ Association, is constantly pushing for an improvement in prices, currently averaging around €250 a tonne.
He pays tribute to Bord Glas, the state horticulture board, for the assistance and support offered to growers but deplores the fact that the industry’s research centre in nearby Dungarvan, County Waterford, has been allowed to close. “In a sector like this, which is under increasing pressure, we need ongoing research on varieties and product lines. At present we’re not getting that.”
With a number of other local growers, he recently launched special “premium quality” packs of eating apples under a Celtic Orchards brand, targeting the supermarket trade. The Superquinn chain, which has been stocking the packs, has reported a good consumer response and he is hoping to build on the initiative.
Perhaps because of his Dutch background, Traas takes his environmental responsibilities more seriously than some of his fellow growers. He has introduced solar heating on The Apple Farm, switched from peat and oil to wind-generated electricity and operates pest and disease control systems that minimise the use of chemicals.
Orchards can be as helpful to the environment as forests, he argues, claiming that an acre of apples can extract some 15t of carbon dioxide a year from the air, while producing 6t of oxygen. “If every person in Ireland were to eat an apple a day,” he suggests, “the 20,000 acres required to meet the annual demand would remove 300,000t of carbon dioxide and replace it with 120,000t of oxygen.”
Sounds like an environmentalist’s dream - and a golden fantasy for apple growers.
NOTT-ED HISTORY OF BRAMLEY
Question: What has a Nottingham butcher to do with Northern Ireland’s Orchard County and its apple industry?
Answer: Quite a lot, according to Dermot Morgan, secretary of the Northern Ireland Fruit Growers’ Association. It was the butcher, Matthew Bramley, who gave his name to the celebrated seedling that has become synonymous with the industry and is now generally accepted as the world’s best cooking apple.
By right, it should have been called “Brailsford’s seedling”, as it was Mary Ann Brailsford who did the original planting in her garden at Southwell, Nottinghamshire, around 1809, using pips from one of her own apples. They grew into a fine seedling, which was planted out and bore its first fruit in 1837.
By 1846, when Matthew Bramley bought the property, the tree had an impressive crop of apples. A local nurseryman, Henry Merryweather, recognised the quality of the fruit and asked for permission to take cuttings. Bramley agreed - but insisted that the variety should carry his name.
Some years later, the Bramley made its way across the Irish Sea, says Morgan. He credits a John Nicholson with introducing it into the Loughgall-Portadown area of County Armagh, where he currently grows 30 hectares of the variety, the third generation of the Morgan family to do so.
He accepts the criticism in the PricewaterhouseCoopers report that the quality and image of the Bramley may have slipped in recent years and that a special marketing campaign may be necessary to re-establish it. But would growers agree to a levy to fund such a campaign? “I wouldn’t mind paying if we could be sure it would work,” he says.
Meanwhile, the original tree, which is still producing heavy crops of Bramley apples in the garden in Southwell, has now acquired celebrity status and can be viewed by appointment, with arrangements made through the British Tree Council. Also on view is a cloned version of the tree produced by Nottingham University.
