Season a struggle for small grower

Philip in his home-built coolstore

Pruning the pear trees

Philip Platje grows the traditional Doyenne du Comice pear variety on a couple of hectares near Cambridge in the Waikato, but what looked like being his best season yet was hit by freak weather and Covid-19.

By Geoff Lewis : Photographs by Trefor Ward

Philip has been in horticulture all his life and gained entry into the business while at high school in Hamilton and spent his summers helping out on an orchard owned by a family friend.

Twenty-five years ago he bought a 1.85ha block at Kaipaki near Cambridge, the TreePak Orchard, and planted the old-style Doyenne du Comice — an attractive variety but with a reputed susceptibility to fireblight. Philip built a new coolstore last year, not a big place, but a useful addition to his facilities, and everything was looking pretty good until a weather bomb hit and a tornado demolished it. ‘’We stood it back up again.’’ Pruning runs from June through to September, a little spray, lime sulphur in winter and an organic fungicide. Bud burst in September, thinning and removal of any diseased fruit and harvesting late summer. This season had been going well with the block producing nearly 10 tonnes and the fruit quality was ‘’unreal’’ — until Covid-19 flew out of left field and closed down Philip’s outlets. ‘’It’s been a challenging year for sales, Covid shut down the farmers’ markets and the organic shops. I contacted wholesalers over the shutdown period and got no replies. Last year a lot of GAP (Good Agricultural Practice) certified fruit was dumped on the market, but the Covid thing blew everything apart. I can keep a crop up to 18 weeks if I need to. But it has been very frustrating, I’ll be lucky to sell a third of the crop, the rest will go to the cows.’’ Philip investigated making ‘perry’ or pear cider through Frucor, but the fruit had to be made into a paste and the Comice variety is not the best for this. He has a homemade pulper to process the fruit into pulp and annually makes up to 700 bottles of pear wine.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU PICK THIS YEAR COULD BE YOUR COVER.

Aligned values and strong relationships are crucial to the success of Hawke’s Bay orchardists Marian and Graham Hirst. The couple joined FMG in 1990 just as they were starting out. At the time Marian says they were establishing their orchard and paying their insurance premiums was a challenge. “Finding that premium in those early years was really hard.” On advisement they took out insurance, including FMG’s hail cover—and just as well. “We were just coming up to our first commercial harvest of apples when we had a giant hailstorm. All the crop was hit,” says Marian. “We wouldn’t have been able to continue our business if we didn’t have that hail cover.”

Fast forward 30 years and both the orchard and FMG’s relationship with the successful pair has grown. The Hirsts now have a 40ha pipfruit and blueberry operation, have nine permanent employees and welcome up to 100 seasonal workers. They also have plans to expand, some of which preceded the Covid-19 lockdown, including an expanded blueberry operation. They also continue to develop their apple varieties to meet market demands. It’s an interesting time but one in which FMG is privileged to support them through. As part of good business practice, Marian says they do review their insurance options but have always chosen to stay with FMG. “We stay with FMG for all the right reasons. It meets our requirements from being a farming focused insurer, to providing value for product—and then there’s the relationship we have.” “We believe strongly in partnerships and relationships with those who we work with—this spans our hort advisors, suppliers, accountant, lawyer and our apple exporter, for example. All the businesses and people we’ve chosen to work with, our values align and that makes for long-term relationships,” says Marian. Over the years, the Hirsts have had a few claims through FMG and say that they had good support, and the assessment and payment process was quick. They’ve also been impressed with FMG’s risk advice. “Talking through our risk management has been exceptionally valuable. It’s impressive and surprising the depth of rural knowledge we’ve seen,” says Marian.

FMG’s Orchard Fruit insurance not only covers your growing and harvested fruit (pip fruit, stone fruit or grapes) against hail strike, there’s no limit on the fruit size at claim time. So it’s well worth getting insurance in place at this time of year. Because no fruit means no income. We also cover for fire, malicious acts, impact, natural disaster and flooding. And we’ll pay out 100% if more than 65% of your insured fruit block is damaged. No matter what happens, we’ve probably seen it before, and we’ll know just what it takes to get things sorted. If that sounds like the kind of insurer you’d like on your side, ask around about us. Or better still, call us directly on 0800 366 466.

This is a summary of our products and services and is subject to our specific product documentation and underwriting criteria. For full details, you should refer to the relevant policy wordings.