Avo cash smash prompts call to fix food gluts and slumps
Richard Dinnen - Queensland Editor |
A Queensland fair food advocate says urgent structural change is needed to reduce oversupply of fresh produce that leads to crops being dumped.
Rob Pekin, from Food Connect Brisbane said the recent dumping of avocados in far north Queensland is disappointing, but not surprising.
Local growers told ABC Radio falling avocado prices meant they could not afford to get them to market.
Mr Pekin said prices have been falling after a bumper crop of avocados last year all over Australia, leading to an over-supply.
“The challenge is magnified now because of the labour shortage, and everything’s so expensive, fertiliser, labour, transport.
“So the decision to dump is a no-brainer. Last year when it happened, a few of them would do the numbers and say ‘if we got the crop off in a box, we might not make any money but it’s better than digging holes in the ground here’.
Mr Pekin said Australia needs a national food strategy or food plan to address supply and demand challenges.
“We’ve got to think through how we become more resilient to all these geopolitical shocks that are bigger following COVID and tensions with China.
“Everyone’s aware of the problems, but there’s no instrument to deal with them, no Department of Food. Existing departments and industry bodies are mainly focussed on revenue and exports.
“It’s a bit like the housing crisis at the moment. Everyone knows what needs to be done but no-one’s going to be brave enough to do it because someone is going to have to take a hit.”
Mr Pekin said there’s a steadily increasing capacity to create alternatives to dumping food crops and steer the produce to people who need it.
“There are food rescue organisations like Food Bank, but the scale of the problem is much bigger than capacity.
“Structurally, there’s a lot of work to be done and we’re doing our little bit to influence people’s thinking.
“We need to redistribute the growing of lots of these crops right across Australia, so we’re not in this position where a cyclone hits up north and bananas go from 13 bucks a box to 120.
“But the political climate, it’s a void, it’s not even thinking about addressing the problem,” Mr Pekin said.
