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I'm a third generation farmer in the Yarra Valley [On-screen text: Michael Napoleone, Yarra Valley Farmer]. I've been working in the business for probably close to 40 years now. My father and grandfather started with their first property in 1948, and we've been farming in this community ever since. In the Yarra Valley we grow different products. We start with our, probably our biggest crop being apples.

We also grow pears, we grow stonefruit, which includes peaches and nectarines. Up in the hills, we also grow some cherries. We also grow grapes for our wine. In the Upper Yarra, we also grow lemons. The Yarra Valley, albeit is a cool climate region, we can have quite some really dry spells. Without water you can't grow produce, it's as simple as that.

So it's very, very important to have a good water source to continue to to grow our product to the best quality we can. We have the Yarra River, which goes partially through our property, and that is one of our sources of our water that we're able to winter fill our dams, and we're able to secure our water to grow our crops year on year.

We can't just pump from the Yarra any time. There has to be a correct flow that goes through to allow water for everyone else being used as well. We have over 500meg [megalitre] of water license here in the Yarra Valley alone, so potentially one of the largest holders of water here in the Yarra Valley. So we need to be conservative and we need to be caring in the community not to over use water at the same time.

Talking about being efficient with our water use, there are micro jets that we use throughout the farms which enables us to disperse the water on an even area and not over water at the same time. We monitor our water use by monitors in the ground that we're able to pull them out, and to see what the levels are of the actual water being absorbed into the ground.

So we don't just water for the sake of it. It is very controlled. Water is very important to us. It's a very important part of our family's DNA.

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[On-screen text: melbournewater.com.au]