RIC Drought Loan boosts net production

12 May 2025

Financial hardship from drought and hail may have forced a South Australian farm business to adapt its operations, but managing future risk with the help of a RIC loan is already bearing fruit.

Husband and wife Robin and Helen Mason, with their sons Paul and Todd, run a 32-hectare apple and pear orchard in Lenswood, near Adelaide.

The fourth and fifth-generation family business, which also employs sixth-generation Liam, supplies the Adelaide Produce Markets and smaller outlets, all the way through to the major supermarkets.

The family grows more than 7 varieties of apples and 2 varieties of pears, averaging 1,620 tonnes a year. 

Low rainfall and drought conditions in 2019 affected the size and quality of their fruit and the Masons also had a second challenge significantly affecting their finances, prompting them to apply for a RIC loan.

"We also had major hail events two seasons in a row, crippling our income,” Helen said. “We couldn’t move forward.”

The Masons refinanced part of their commercial debt with their RIC loan.

They had already started installing permanent trellising for new plantings from 2014 and the RIC loan’s interest-only period and low interest rate created additional cash flow to invest in netting and new fruit varieties.

The benefits to their fruit production business have been extensive.

Trellising has made harvest easier and faster, while the netting protects the trees from sunburn, hail and bird attack.
 

Protection from dry conditions

Crucially, netting has also increased the moisture content in the soil when combined with good grass coverage between rows.

It means the business does not have to rely as heavily on irrigation, an important benefit given the family is not permitted to build more on-farm water storage under state regulations.

“With a new record dry for this area in 2024 and into 2025, we can see clearly how water management improves with the presence of permanent netting,” Helen said.

Since they received their loan funds, the Masons have been able to increase the netted area from 3 hectares to almost 25 hectares.

“We figure any area we’ve structured this way is then set up for 30 years with that variety of apple,” Helen said.

“The tree root might be in the ground even longer than this, as we can use grafting and change varieties if required, retaining the permanent structures and netting.”

They found the loan terms, which included interest-only payments for the first five years with the ability to tailor a repayment schedule (monthly, quarterly or half yearly), worked for their business. 
 

Future-proofing financial risk

Helen described the efforts as future-proofing. “We were looking for a long-term solution to controlling nature really, so our production could remain safe and our productivity could increase,” she said.

“We are picking more fruit of a higher quality.”

She said previously, about 80-85 per cent of each bin was good quality, serviceable fruit and had now improved to the 90-95 per cent range.

Helen said RIC was an attractive alternative to traditional borrowing and the business had already made inroads into debt reduction.

“We needed to get going quickly and efficiently and not have to worry too much in the immediate term about how it was going to be paid back until everything was producing the way we wanted it to,” she said.

“RIC has been accommodating with voluntary payments on a schedule that we initiated – it’s a really good way to borrow money, it just helps with cash flow and it makes you really think about the future and why you want to keep farming.” 

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