It is a busy time of year at Yarra Valley Cherries. Their trees are primed with ripening fruit that is almost ready for picking. It has also recently announced that they have been certified as a carbon neutral cherry orchard through the Australian Government’s ‘Climate Active’ program, which is a collective initiative for climate action.

Yarra Valley Cherries is the first cherry orchard in Australia to have gone through the extensive process of certification, realising its commitment to significantly reduce its carbon impact.

In welcoming the certification, Yarra Valley Cherries managing director Andrew Fairley confirmed the commitment that the family has to operating more sustainably.

“We are incredibly proud to be the first cherry orchard in Australia to have achieved this certification. Our team has made every effort possible over the last 10 years to minimise our carbon footprint, and this acknowledgement from Climate Active that we are now carbon neutral is important to us, our broader community and the cherry industry.”

Climate Active is a partnership between the Australian Government and Australian businesses to encourage organisations to voluntarily take climate action. The certification is only available to businesses that go through a process of measurement, adaptation, and have a commitment to continuous improvement.

Hort Innovation spoke to Andrew about his carbon-neutral journey and advice to other growers.

What got you started on this path?

I worked in ecotourism for nearly 30 years, so sustainability is in my DNA. When you are running a business, I believe you need to run it in the most sustainable way possible, so that has been my approach to any business I am part of.

We bought the cherry orchard nearly 10 years ago, and it has been an iterative process of first learning about cherry farming, bringing the orchard back up to a commercial standard, and then thinking about our carbon.

We do everything in the Yarra Valley, from growing to packing, so we immediately started looking for solutions for a sustainable process. For example, we started reusing fruit that we could not sell to make cold-pressed cherry juices and not throw the product out, and we are currently looking into selling cherry timber for smoking ovens.

When we got serious about becoming carbon-neutral, we started working with a consultant who could work with us to establish our carbon footprint so we could start taking steps to minimise that footprint.

It is a long journey, and it is not inexpensive because you spend a lot of time establishing your carbon footprint. Staff need to go through every invoice to look at the footprint; then, you establish your carbon budget and then work out how you will offset it and reduce it.

We have reduced our carbon emissions as much as possible and invested in projects that reduce or remove emissions from the atmosphere.

Our efforts include the installation of a 15kw solar array, electric forklifts, greater use of natural fertilisers, chipping our prunings and finding alternative uses for damaged fruit.

What would your advice be to other growers considering their carbon?

What I cannot say to other growers is that they are guaranteed to get higher prices. You do not do this to get a higher premium for your product, although that may come one day. You do it because you are committed to not wanting your business to add to the load of carbon already out there and changing our climate.

The horticulture sector needs to identify that carbon-neutral commitment is getting to the point where it will be the baseline. Carbon-neutral commitment will eventually become what is expected from us.

The major supermarkets already have a carbon budget they are trying to work to and have to report on. It is axiomatic that within a relatively short time (maybe a couple of years), they will be attracted to producers that do not need to add to their carbon budget because the product is carbon neutral.

Yarra Valley Cherries have certainly been a trailblazer in undertaking this work.

What was the biggest challenge?

The sheer weight of information you must collect was a significant challenge. And then came the realisation of how many tonnes of carbon we were emitting – when you work that out, it is a bit scary.

What helped us overcome that challenge was that we had instant buy-in from our team to embrace sustainability. Our team was enthusiastic to get started and committed to being a beacon of light in the sector from the very start.

I consistently advise the industry to seek more commitment to sustainability and have a view of their carbon footprint. The process that we went through in ascertaining our carbon footprint was arduous and lengthy, but it gave us some terrific information about where our most significant impact was from a carbon perspective.

What is next for Yarra Valley Cherries?

Now that we have our benchmark and know our outputs, we can look at how to minimise our impact across everything we do. Continuous improvement is our goal now.

Electric tractors are something that we are particularly interested in at the moment. We spend a lot of time on our tractors; they are an essential part of horticulture, so that is an avenue we will be keeping a close eye on. They are not currently available in Australia but are in the US.

We also want to continue encouraging the sector to get on board. We have learned a lot from our sustainability journey and want to share that with others.

ABOUT YARRA VALLEY CHERRIES

Yarra Valley Cherries is an Australian owned, boutique, premium cherry grower with the aspiration to produce the freshest and highest quality cherries available. Located in Seville in the beautiful Upper Yarra Valley, it grows more than 30 different varieties across 20,000 trees ensuring you can buy the best cherries throughout the season.