WHEN you walk into a supermarket you’ll see almost every type of fruit imaginable on the shelves: bananas, apples, strawberries, pears, naartjies, oranges, mangoes, apricots, cherries, peaches, watermelon, kiwi fruit, blueberries, pineapples, grapes, paw paw and spanspek.
There’s always fruit available thanks to the efforts of fruit farmers and farm labourers who toil away in orchards, gardens and vineyards around the world.
They prepare the soil and then plant, cultivate, tend and harvest the fruit that’s eventually sold in shops, markets, at road stalls or by vendors. The better the quality of the fruit, the more it benefits the fruit farmer, as this affects the price.
The type of fruit grown in a particular place is determined largely by the climate in the area. For example, the Boland region with…