As QLD banana growers facing the threat of PanamaTR4 disease are coming to grips with new containment measures and protocols, those north of Cairns have been handed another challenge. They are preparing for Tropical Cyclone Nathan, expected to make landfall close to Cook Town early on Friday. The cyclone is currently a category 3, and Cook Shire Mayor Peter Scott told ABC News he feared that Nathan’s impact could be greater than that of Cyclone Ita, which hit the Hope Vale community a year ago, an area where bananas are grown, if conditions remain favourable for Nathan to grow stronger. Current predictions are that it will reach land as a category 4.
Lakeland’s Swiss Farms, a banana plantation in the cyclone’s path with 130 employees, will be harvesting and transporting fruit right until it is too windy to do so. The farm’s owner Peter Inderbitzen also said that his farm had already experienced some minor losses from when Nathan threatened his property a week ago “A few bananas trees went down with big bunches on them and we had to clean up," he told ABC Rural.
"The usual thing happens when you get heavy wind, you're going to get some losses, but we'll just have to take it as it comes “We’re tying down our centre pivot irrigators and picking what we can, and then we're in the lap of the gods. We'll see."
Farmers who are close to the Cassowary Coast, where 85% of Australia’s bananas are produced, were reminded they could not afford to get distracted from their efforts to contain the Panama TR4 disease by the Australian Banana Growers’ Council director Steve Lizzio, but he said his thoughts were with those bracing for the storm. Dr Jim Thompson, Chief Biosecurity Officer for Biosecurity Queensland also confirmed that wet weather further south could affect surveillance efforts. “The expected landfall of Cyclone Nathan this Friday near Cooktown may hinder our surveillance efforts if associated heavy rain extends south to the Tully area,” he said in a statement.
Source: abc.net.au , ABC Rural