“We need advertising, a full campaign to remind people of the benefits of apples,” he said.

There has been a 30 per cent decline in sales this season and Mr Peeler, who is president of the Harcourt District Fruit Growers Association, said there was no single solution.

“Critics would say we should have been better prepared, but the farming sector is seeing such rapid change presently, no one could have predicted such diverse outcomes,” he said. “Although our focus is on sustainability, we must now put much more time in areas like marketing, water security, climate change and so on.”Mr Peeler also indicated that some quality had dropped due to the extreme heat in summer and the prolonged drought and a lack of quality control. “Customers are getting put off apples,” he said. “Possibly they have bought late-pick fruit and they have been soft; they shouldn’t have been on the market.

“If you put an apple in a supermarket it won’t last anywhere near as long, so we need an education program thrown at consumers and the middle man in general,” he said. Another local orchardist, Allan McLean, said the situation was not too dramatic and he understood the trough in the market.

“I don’t think it is that bad,” he said. “It is a quiet time of the year, kids are on school holidays, it’s cold, the poor economy . . .

“Our main concern is water; it is our number one issue, apple sales are up and down a little bit but we haven’t completely lost our bundle over it.”