"Fruitgrowing, It's a salacious business"
Jonathan Newby entertained the crowd with his section winning speech at Hawkes Bay Young Fruitgrower Of The Year, it went down a treat with the audience. His delivery was amazing, and his performance was noted by important players in the industry. You really had to be there to appreciate the performance, however for those of you who weren't there here is a copy of his speech...
When I received this topic, the other young fruit growers and I had a laugh because none of us knew what the word Salacious meant. So for your benefit, here is the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary definition;
SA-LA-cious, from Latin origin SALAX;
1. Lustful
2. Erotic
3. With sexual content or crude desire
4. Appealing to
5. Spicy & Scandalous
So here we go;
She starts off with a promise. A delivery of well rounded shapely… fruit.
On the land our year begins with pruning, where we begin to shape and train our naked ladies, with their spreading limbs, standing tall after they have dropped their leafy cloak.
But as we’re lulled into a false belief that the coming harvest will be bountiful. Along comes Lady Frost or her wicked step sister, Hail, to bring our precious numbers down.
Slowly behind the scenes the NZ dollar rises and rises to bring our profit margin further and further down.
With the Australian market tempting us from across the Tasman, so close, so affordable, the offspring of our ladies will spend less time in a container.
Aside from these few problematic hurdles I’ve named, we are all in fruit growing for a couple of reasons.
Lifestyle; there is no boss bearing over us in a couped up office being told when to jump and how high, demanding that 4pm deadline, or sales target to meet. Instead; working outside in Summers arms in Hawkes Bay’s sunny clime, watching a year long efforts being harvested. Or in Winters chilly grasp, up top of your Hydra ladder, 1 on 1 with your ladies, no worries, alone with your own thoughts and your iPod, singing at the top of your lungs.
Just like the chase of a beautiful young woman, we are spellbound by the potential of what Fruit growing can give us.
If the NZ dollar comes down against other currencies and with the world in shortage of basic foods, like fresh fruit, vegetables and meat.
If the weather does not throw us any curve balls, the potential is there for us to have a profitable year. But none of us are under any illusion that we are going to get rich off Fruit growing.
It’s about the Lifestyle. As not very often we are afforded the “PERFECT” year. Some years are better than others.
It’s about the Passion.
It’s about the friends we make and the team we work with.
It’s about enjoying what we do.
Fruit growers are passionate people. Everyday we are out there, every year we are met with a new challenge and rise to meet these challenges.
We provide a backbone for which the world needs to survive. As long as there is demand, which is forever growing and growing. We will continue to be lured in to this exciting and sexy industry.
So as we drive down our driveways tonight on our way home and we see our beautiful temptuous ladies lit in the moonlight waiting, waiting to receive us in the morning light to do what is our passion, our lifestyle in the new dawn.
That is why we are Fruit growers, because IT IS a Salacious business.
Jonathan Newby
