Banana growers of Cassowary Coast are still counting the costs after a wild storm battered crops and left tens of thousands of banana bunches on the ground on Sunday 13 November, reports abc.net.au.
Craig Buchanan, from LMB Farms, was right in the firing line as hail and wind gusts of up to 150km/h battered crops in a 15-minute barrage at East Palmerston, west of Innisfail in Queensland, on Sunday afternoon.
Mr Buchanan has farmed through severe tropical cyclones and floods, but said he had only experienced a storm like this one a few times.
"We've lost probably 30 per cent of the bunches we had hanging on our farm, in 15 minutes."
Mr Buchanan and wife Jade were still counting the costs yesterday as 40–50 workers carried out the painstaking task of removing protective bags and chopping up fallen banana bunches.
"It's about 15,000 bunches, so probably looking at around 30,000 15-kilo cartons," Mr Buchanan said.
"Our bunch size will drop a lot for probably the next three or four months, I'd say.
"It's a bit depressing for a few days. Hopefully we don't get too many more [storms]."
Growers this year have endured one of the worst banana gluts in memory, and while prices had increased for about six weeks, they were again heading south as weekly production levels exceeded 550,000 cartons.
