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Mildura Weekly : Friday January 10 2014 Vol 8 No 10
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www.milduraweekly.com.au 4 Mildura Weekly – 10/01/14 Councillor calls for city parking overhaul • From Page 3 “During the really busy times of the year like Easter and Christmas, it will make things more orderly be- cause you won’t have people com- ing and going as often,” he said. “It will be more regulated, but for the rest of the time, quite hon- estly, the way the shift has been out to Fifteenth Street, you can get a park in the CBD of Mildura most of the time.” Cr Thorburn said ensuring staff who worked at CBD businesses didn’t take up spaces would further reduce the load on parking, which he said continued to be a problem. While critical of some aspects of the CBD, Cr Thorburn said the re- cent addition of a major service sta- tion on the corner of Orange Ave- nue and Eighth Street was a positive. “It has already shown that it’s one of the busiest service stations in the CBD, so that’s a plus,” he said. Cr Thorburn said Mildura could take many lessons from other re- gional areas to help reinvigorate the CBD, such as the provision of wire- less internet access for shoppers, which he said was available in many other areas. “They need to put a Wi-Fi ser- vice in the mall to bring younger people back,” he said. “Young people and people visit- ing the district such as backpackers need a reason to come into the mall. “If they (CBD) don’t they’ll miss the boat because Mildura Central will do it sooner or later, so they need to get in on the ground floor. “I’ve seen a lot of other places do it and it’s an attraction. It brings people in.” By BEN PISCIONERI THE first of Australia’s two major dried fruit processors has announced its prices for the coming harvest, re- vealing increases for most Sultana varieties. Australian Premium Dried Fruits, which has about 100 growers under contract, will pay an additional $100 per tonne compared to last year for the majority of Sultana and Sultana- type varieties. It will pay $2000 per tonne for five crown quality Sultanas and Sun Muscat, $1900 for four crown and $1800 for three crown. The price increases were wel- comed by Dried Fruits Australia chair- man Mark King this week, although he said growers would still like to see heftier increases. “It’s great to see an increase and it’s certainly heading in the right di- rection,” Mr King said. However the dried grape grower said the prices were still not up to the level they reached two years ago. Costs on the rise “Speaking to growers, they’re say- ing that the costs of production are still going up, and our prices haven’t gone up accordingly,” Mr King said. “Also, world supply still isn’t in- creasing, yet population is going up. We used to grow 1.4 million tonnes (globally), and we’re just over a mil- lion now, so I would say supply and demand are well and truly back in balance. “But as I said, the increase in price is a positive, hopefully the Australian dollar will go down and we see an- other price increase next year.” In announcing APDF’s prices this week, managing director Alan Wil- liamson said while there was less fruit produced in Turkey this year, the Cali- fornian dried fruit crop had increased. “We are seeing the market move to take up the cheaper Californian product at the moment,” Mr William- son said. “The industrial market is less dis- cerning on the origin of the product they use and are very price conscious. “Therefore we have to continue to differentiate with our quality however still offer our product at a price point that keeps consumers buying Aus- tralian and not substituting ours for overseas products.” While upbeat about the increase in prices for most varieties, Mr Wil- liamson said an oversupply of Cur- rants was one of the few negatives. He said prices would drop by be- tween $25 and $125 per tonne as a result of the over-supply. “Most growers have smaller plant- ings of Currants, although there are exceptions,” Mr Williamson said. “From almost 18,000 tonnes of dried fruit produced last season, ap- proximately 3000 tonnes were Cur- rants.” Mr Williamson also confirmed this week that APDF would continue its trend of not differentiating in price between light or dark raw material. He said the domestic market did not offer higher prices for light fruit, instead putting a priority on good quality, clean fruit, regardless of whether it was dark or amber. While conceding the export mar- ket preferred light coloured fruit, he said the premium it paid only com- pensated for the additional costs as- sociated with exporting. “Therefore, we believe it is fair to pay growers a price that reflects the quality of the product rather than the colour of the product,” Mr William- son said. APDF expects to increase the amount of fruit it processes this year by about 10 percent to 5500 tonnes. Mr Williamson said the increase was due to a combination of new plantings and contracting new grow- ers. The majority of the company’s growers are based in Sunraysia, al- though it does have contracted grow- ers in the Riverland and in the Robin- vale and Nyah areas. Good, solid crop Meanwhile, Mr King described this year’s dried fruit crop as “not huge, but a good solid crop” and pre- dicted an earlier start to this year’s harvest than last year given the mild summer and lack of searingly hot days. He expects most growers will be- gin harvesting by the second week of February. Looking longer term, the DFA president said the key to the dried grape industry’s future lay in increas- ing production, which will be fuelled by higher prices. Australia produced about 18,000 tonnes of dried fruit last year and the industry expects to increase that figure to about 19,000 this year. Together, Australia and New Zea- land consume about 50,000 tonnes of dried fruit, leaving room for growth, even with expected continual flow of imported fruit. Industry leaders say growth to about 25,000 tonnes for the Austra- lian dried fruits industry would be sustainable and is a target they’ve set. “We don’t presume that we would grow everything that Australia will consume - imports will come in - but 25,000 tonnes seems to be a reason- able sort of target,” Mr Williamson said. Sunbeam is expected to release its prices towards the end of this month. Dried fruit prices on the rise • UPBEAT: Australian Premium Dried Fruits managing director Alan Williamson, LEFT, and Dried Fruits Australia president Mark King. POLICE are calling for the public’s help to iden- tify a man in relation to a burglary and theft from a Wade Avenue address late last year. Police say the bur- glary was committed between 3.30pm on November 12 and 8am the following day and involved the theft of ar- chery equipment. Two days later, a man attempted to sell several pieces of archery equip- ment at a Mildura sec- ond-hand dealers store. Police have released a photograph of a man they wish to identify in relation to these inci- dents, RIGHT. Anyone with infor- mation is urged to con- tact Mildura Police First Constable Ian Ashcroft on 5018 5300 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Information sought on burglary, theft Lots of interesting things for pros and wanna be pros. Home or business. Picture frames, child props/seats, lights, still cameras, video cameras, tripods, stands, office equipment, 44 inch large format printer & lots of photo paper rolls, framing equipment/supplies, TV's, video editing suite, computers (apple), home theatre projector/screen, surround THX sound system, photography books, filing cabinets, desks, sofas, chairs, studio props, overhead lighting rail system, Portrait & video backgrounds/rolls, flash lights, soft boxes, recording/mixing 24 channel desk, microphones, video lights, vintage studio lights, .... so much gear! Lots of interesting things for pros and wanna be pros Home or business Picture frames child props/seats lights still CLOSING DOWN SALE Photography & Video Studio Clearance Sale this Saturday 11th January 8am -5pm. 161 Eighth Street Mildura (between Pine & Olive) g o
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