Pests hidden inside imported fruit and vegetables can cause great financial problems for Australian farmers. Should biosecurity personnel officers miss anything, the consequences could be disastrous. This danger is increased by an agricultural worker shortage caused by international borders restrictions, which has caused fresh challenges for biosecurity staff.
Some farmers have abandoned crops because they could not find enough pickers, and Biosecurity Tasmania general manager Rae Burrows said staff shortages could provide the "perfect situation" for pests like the Queensland fruit fly "to explode in population".
"If we don't pick all the fruit on the trees and there's fruit left, starting to rot, that's a much more amenable environment for something like Q fly to go berserk," she said. Ms Burrows said its biosecurity program and operational groups examine what is happening across Australia and the world to understand "what are our greater risks for this year".
Source: abc.net.au
