The story of Red and Black Currant plantings in Southland is a tale of insufficient research and lost group marketing potential.
In the 1980′s, a group of entrepreneurial nurserymen promoted a “get-rich quick” scheme to the farmers of Southland involving the planting of crops of red and black currants.”You will make a fortune!” their advertisements crowed. “These shrubs are easy to grow and the world markets are screaming out for currant juices and berries!!”
A significant number of farmers were attracted to the opportunity and very quickly, orchards of red and black currents sprang up all over Southland. However, in their haste to sell nursery plants to farmers, the nurserymen failed to understand that for a successful industry to develop, you needed to not only grow the fruit but also set up the infrastructure to process and market the fruit.
The farmers failed to either work together successfully or to find a local champion to set up processing and marketing facilities.
Within two years, all of the currant bushes had been pulled out and the industry failed to become reality.
Farmers tend to have long memories of these sorts of “get-rich-quick” ventures, particularly the failures and every farming district seems to have some sort of tale to tell of this sort of experience.
The Topoclimate process has been designed to avoid this sort of situation by approaching the diversification issue in an orderly structured way, making use of all available information to avoid as much risk as possible in the decision making process. Regardless of how you approach a new crop enterprise, the underlying requirement of good verified crop and market research is imperative to your success.
