The Riverland has been battling a series of Queensland fruit fly outbreaks since December 2020, with more than 40 red zones across the region. Now, South Australia's Riverland growers could be muscled out by large businesses that could afford to manage mounting trade protocols amid ongoing fruit fly outbreaks.
Growers in a red zone must abide by quarantine restrictions, meaning their fruit cannot be sold to sensitive markets like Adelaide or Western Australia without expensive treatment, like fumigation.
According to Summerfruit South Australia's Jason Size, the cost and time required for growers to access interstate markets had exploded since the outbreaks.
"My concern is that at the end of the day we are not going to have those small family growers in our region anymore," he said. "Instead it will be left to those larger businesses that have the ability to employ someone to manage that paperwork. This would be death by paperwork."
Source: abc.net.au