A carton of beer is dumped on a bench in a shed surrounded by avocado, custard apple and mango trees.
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It's far from knockoff time for workers on the picturesque farm located in the hills just outside of Gin Gin in the Bundaberg region.
The beer is a gift to orchard owner John Warren, who runs Makhoma Farms with his wife Cassie, from a local for being able to pick as many mangoes as they possibly can fit into their car.
The mangoes are huge, and look perfect at a glance, but Mr Warren is giving them away to people prepared to pick them after deciding it would not be affordable to harvest mangoes this season.
"They give us presents, I've had a Christmas ham and a carton of beer, because they are very grateful to have the mangoes," he said.
"But they are doing me a favour by getting the fruit out of the orchard.
"Because we do so many other fruits like avos and custard apples we have a big base of farmer market people, not just from here but all the way from Gympie to Gladstone and they will get the majority off, but I can't pay people to pick fruit to dump."
The couple have owned the farm for 7 years and this is the first time they have made the decision not to harvest the R2E2 and Kensington Pride mangoes they produce.
The Warren's need the mangoes removed so other crops are not at risk from pests attracted to rotting fruit.
"We do a lot of custard apples and they are very susceptible to fruit fly, if we get the fruit out of the orchard it makes our life easier to control their numbers," he said.
"You can imagine all this fruit lying on the ground, ripening, all that protein, we'd have an explosion of fruit fly.
"It's the first time in 7 years I've made the decision to leave the crop, I probably should have made it one other year but I didn't and I learnt from that mistake."
Mr Warren made the call to not harvest after carefully studying the Queensland season's mango production, which begins in the north of the state and moves south over summer.
Unusual weather conditions also informed his hesitation in outlaying the costs required to produce pristine looking mangoes.
"The first thing was the wet winter that reduced our crop size and then we started to get reports about Mareeba and the Burdekin having huge flowering and also fruiting later," he said.
"So if they are having a big flowering and they are pushing back their picking time, we all will hit the market in the same week and it will be a bloodbath.
"With the rain damage if you are not packing 80 to 90 per cent premium you just can't recover the costs.
"The last couple of years have been tough, with COVID, labour, the cost of everything like diesel and fertiliser has gone through the roof and then you get a year like this where mangoes are at their lowest prices for years, it's tough going."
Brett Kelly is Chief Executive Officer at Australian Mangoes (Australian Mango Industry Association) and agreed while the quality of this years fruit has been "excellent", vast numbers hitting market was a challenge for producers.
"The season in terms of volume is up on last year, but it has been a difficult season and the reason for that is predominantly we normally have the Northern Territory kicking off first and then we flow into Queensland.
"But due to issues with weather and rain, the Northern Territory season started late, and what that means is it's crossed over with North Queensland and that's generated a huge volume all at the one time at the markets.
"What that does with a supply and demand situation, it puts a lot of pressure on price for our growers."
With the season three quarters complete Mr Kelly said prices for the fruit that "tastes like summer" have begun to stabilise.
"The price is starting to level out as we move through the season so I'm hoping growers start to get a better return," he said.
"The price has been the lowest it has been in years, but it is starting to lift as the glut of that fruit moves through.
"We want our farmers to get a fair price so they can reinvest and stay sustainable, because of that crossover people start to panic a little and try to offload as much fruit as they can and the feedback is they are not getting the price they would like to get."
Mr Kelly also mentioned while the export market is quite limited, there is interest in Aussie mangoes and in New Zealand a single Australian mango was selling for $8 in supermarkets, and they all sold out.
He also feels we need to remember to support our farmers when shopping.
"We need to promote the fact these are 100 per cent Australian produced, a lot of second and third generation farmers," he said.
"Anything that is produced in Australia or New Zealand is recognised as being the best quality in the world.
"Let's get behind our farmers and let's pay a fair price."
Back at Gin Gin on Makhoma Farms Mr Warren is unsure how to fix the low price problem and feels consumers have heard the message many times before.
"This debate comes up so often with all the fruit, when they dump avos and dump citrus, mangoes are the same thing," he said.
"The whole consumer side of it, I feel they have tried convincing people and the message doesn't get through, we all do it, we just shop with our eyes.
"I don't know what the solution is.
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