Australia’s Riverina district has a climate perfect for citrus fruits. The long, hot summers, and porous, sandy soil provide ideal conditions for growing blood oranges. The Mildura region, in particular, is known for its fruit production, including navel and Valencia oranges, mandarins and wine and dried fruit grapes.
This agricultural centre was a popular post-war destination for Italian farming families wanting to make their fortune, and it was here that Joe Barila arrived as a seven-year-old. Money was scarce and Joe was put to work almost immediately. ‘I didn’t get the chance for a proper schooling, I went straight to work with fruit and vegetables, as that’s what my father did,’ Joe recalls. Today, Joe still keeps a vegetable patch a few kilometres from his blood orange orchard.
Joe’s wife Maria is also of Italian descent. Her parents arrived in Australia in the early-1950s and she was born a few years later. ‘My father worked for years and finally saved enough to buy his own fruit block,’ tells Maria. Joe and Maria both have vivid childhood memories of their parents talking fondly of their homeland, and of the beauty and taste of ‘arance sanguine’ – the blood orange. Joe and Maria married in 1975 and bought the farm where they now live – in Gol Gol, eight kilometres from Mildura. They have been growing blood oranges since 1989 and the trees now occupy two hectares of the 15-hectare property.