When Bill Gribben Jnr was born in Shepparton in 1943, his parents Bill Snr and Gwen decided they should buy a fruit block.
It was to be Bill Jnr's eventually, starting a tradition of handing the family orchard down from one generation to the next.
Bill took on the orchard sooner than he’d thought at age 16, when his father drowned while duck hunting in 1960. Five years later he formally purchased the property from his parents and kept working the land as an orchard until the trees were removed in 2006.
A lucerne crop to cover the rates and insurance is all the land produces these days.
Surrounding small orchards are also struggling. They have been trying to convince Greater Shepparton City Council the land should be rezoned to allow for residential or industrial expansion of Shepparton.
“We have been here 77 years on 8 ha, there are 12 of us on small farms and we are all in unison,” Bill Gribben said.
Not long before Bill Snr died, he told his son he would make a good living out of the orchard until he was 40 years old.
“Dad said by the time I was 40 I’d be a rich man, because the town will be here; my son is now 40 and we are still here,” Bill said.
The Gribbens are frustrated the land, no longer productive or profitable at the small scale, is being protected by planners for its agricultural value when former orchard land across Doyles Rd is covered by heavy industry.
With councillors in the final stages of considering the 2050 plan, they want recognition of their plight.
“The forefathers envisaged that Shepparton would grow to the east,” Bill said.
“This area, if we could get development, it will explode just because of its location. Give the people in East Shepparton the right to have the choice.”