Evenings with Matthew PantelisMatthew Pantelis is joined by Tony Sacca from Da Salvatore Farms in Virginia, Independent MLC Frank Pangallo and Shadow Primary Industries Minister Nicola Centofanti.
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About a fungus, a virus that is hurting the tomato industry and here in South Australia, and I see on Frank Pangelo's Instagram he's been out to one grow up Affection Fresh in the Northern suburbs where they have filled up a lot of bins and big bins. We're talking not the mini skips you might have in your driveway to get rid of some rubbish at home. These are giant skips that are probably the best part of eight nine meters long and two or three meters deep. They're big bins and they filled up eight in one day, just throwing away perfectly good tomatoes after the fungus was found in one glasshouse on the farm. They're not the only ones. Tony Sakker is from the Salvator Farms in Virginia. Tony, good morning, good morning.
How are you all right?
Thank you? What's been happening out your way?
Well, basically, this forus came through about six weeks ago into Virginia and there was suspected farms that got the virus. Only two have been proven positive the rest haven't. So what's happened is the prime industries around Australia, which is all state run, have all started banning tomatoes from entering the state. WA has Queensland have, and I think next week New South Wales will. So it's created a big crisis here in Virginia where sales of tomatoes we can't sell, so they're basically going in the bin. So price is now of expensive interstate because they're not getting a lot of supply and we're throwing them in the bin here.
And there's nothing wrong with the ones you're throwing away, presumably, no, no.
Definitely nothing wrong with them. And apparently this is data coming from overseas. It's very hard to transmit the virus through the product, so basically from plant to planet can be transmitted fairly easily, I picked, it's very hard to transmit into the into another onto another farm, basically into states. So it's a minimal risk and a huge crisis happening here in Virginia.
Okay, what's the answer here? It seems to me, and I've been reading through PERSA websites since morning, it seems to me we've kind of put in a COVID style, panicked response to a problem that is not that big.
Yeah, that's correct, Well, they've dealt with it overseas and it's been dealt with and they've moved on. The sea providers have also started developing. Well, they have got disease resistant varieties, so the disease will not affect the plant. It only affects the plant. So what happens is it can't go full term, so it's devastating the plant itself. It's not devastating the fruit. Free can still be picked and gone through. So the long term answer to all this is all states to work together. Maybe the federal government should step in and coordinate this so we all can keep trading and all together we all defeat problems and it can be defeated. They've don't allowed to seats.
So you're saying, if it's in the plant, that plant is worthless. It'll die of its ownar cord.
Yeah, it will die in time. Yeah, that's correct, and it might infect the next plan onwards ongoing, So it could devastate a group of tomatoes. They still will be down by thirty percent production. So basically, if you're going to go one hundred percent production, if this virus hits your farm, it hits the group that you've got the tomatoes and it goes down by thirty percent, but this way, if we stop trading, it leaves one hundred percent.
Yeah.
Yeah, So that's that's the biggest issue.
All right. You like the state government to step in here and say common sense needs to prevail over this type of virus.
I think I think it should go federal because it's not like Proparsa are not doing the right job. They're trying to contain the virus. Now, unfortunately the testing has been a bit slow, but they're trying to contain the virus, and I believe they're doing their job. It's the other spaces that are banning and saying it's your problem and it's not our. So you, once you sort it out, you let us know. We do approximately eighty percent of production here in Virginia tomatoes that travel when our season starts until four weeks time, until probably April, we do nearly seventy to eighty percent of production for Australia White. Now that means if they close their borders, there won't be any tomatoes available into state and we will will have a crisis here in Virginia where where all the farms will start closing down, which we start are also stopping watering our plants because we have no sales for our product.
Yeah, I understand consumption of an infected tomato. I don't know if it will taste any different, but there's no effect on human health.
No, but it won't taste any different at all. Okay, it just makes this fruit look a bit blotchy, that's all it does, right, And there's nothing wrong with it at all. It can be consumed, it can be enjoyed. But now it's been put in bins.
Yeah, all of it, though not just the infected fruit.
Well, it will just yeah, because the Queens have put a banker blanket. Ban Wa have also done the same thing and new files will only implement farms that are infected. But because of the test results not coming in all at the same time, and it's been a bit of a bit of a mess because we weren't prepared for it, it's become they've created. It's become our problem in South Australia, which it should be a national problem, and this is where it's falling short nationally. They have to step in and have to sort of out or else we'll have a huge class of losing millions up to billions of dollars here in our state because we can't produce and send tomatoes away.
All right, Tony, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you, and hopefully, as you say, hopefully the federal government does step in and organizes a nationwide approach to it. Frank Pangala, You've been out to Virginia. You've spoken with a different group out there, Perfection Fresh. You've written to the premier outlining the points essentially the same points Tony's made from the Salvator Farms absolutally.
Look, the Affection Fresh is a massive operation. I didn't realize how big it was until I went there the other day, Probably one of the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. And they employ up to twelve hundred people in peak peak season and turn over millions of wallows. Now, when I was speaking with the management and the KEITHH executive Uncle simm and Eva the other day, they were frustrated at the pace of the PERSA investigation and what they're trying to do, and also the fact that they've instructed them or ordered them to destroy perfectly good tomatoes. Now, these are the variety of tomatoes that they produced there. The solomatoes, you know, those small tomatoes that you see in super or.
Well.
Attention Fresh do them exclusively for woolworks and coals around the country. Is concerned that Perfection Press that if this ban on their fruit continues, I'm perfectly good fruit that I have to throw away, and we're talking about hundreds of tons of this. They could go broke and there'll be a loss of up to four hundred jobs and the plantation at bull Wells may have to close down. That's how concerned they are. And you know, the the virus has been limited to a couple of their glass houses. And when I talk glasshouses, Matt, you know, we're not talking about the ones you normally see when you go down for waitefill grun. These are massive. But they've managed to contain it in there. There are only a few points that they discovered. But Persia is now ordering that you know, plants to be with out and destroyed and they have to get rid of those other glasshouses aren't affected. The other thing that Perfection Fresh have done is installed their own testing laboratory. Did that very quickly, the tests all the plants and tomatoes that they got in there, and you know, so far they've managed to contain it. Now, Toy is right. I think what's going to happen to happen here is, you know, the gen is out of the bottle now and one of the virus is now being discovered in Australia and in In fact the first place was perfection pressure, and they put their hands up to say that they did have it. It may well already be in other states, and no one's ever pobled to nominate the authorities about it. The perfection pressure. It's a pretty high tech operation there and they know how to contain and manage it. And perhaps this is what the governments need to do now rather than trying eradicate it as you mentioned well like COVID. Yeah, it just won't work, and it hasn't worked in other parts of the world, in Europe and the Americas elsewhere. So they just live with it. They've lived with for the last five years, no problem. People still buy tomatoes, they eat them, you know, I you know, I tasted a couple the other day, no problem. You know, they do not cause any harm whatsoever.
So it's just it just causes blutching, I understand, that's all it does.
That's all it does. But of course, you know, but to make it a widespread ban on the on the fruit, even the good stuff, is ludicrous and it's costing this business a lot of money and it could send it broke. And you know, it's going to cost about twelve hundred jobs if that's the case now, the jobs you can't afford to lose. And look, it's I think that burs are the sort of panic stricken at the moment, probably unsure how to handle this. And what they need to do is probably as with similar agencies across the world that have already handled it and have got on with it, you know. And I've spent around for a few years now, so no point sort of trying to eradicate and keep it all quiet, because that's what they want to do. They want to keep it secrets so that own any people, you know, just be open about it and tackle it, you know, and you know, the primary industries especially have a review of this ludicrous band on the style of perfectly good fruit in South Australia.
Could it spread to other fruit Franklin capsicums or you know, they're similarly grown produced fruit here.
Just a can and I think that's the other fear that persa have got is that it might go on to one of the only ones I think they think it could go to this Capsican chillies and possibly egg plant. But again, you have to learn to manage these things, just like you know with fruit fly. Now, there's a massive fruitfly eradication program that's been going on in the riverland I readon for the best part of three or four years. Yes, they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars. They've got workers that are just going for one property or another spraying not only fruit brees, but also now spraying native trees. Now, you know, personally, I think the battle's lost with fruit fly, you know, and you've got to learn to manage it and live with it rather than tryan have an eradication program that is not going to work. And this I've got to say, Nakie, this is the that all this should be. The blame for fruit b for instance, should go back to labor governments years ago when they decided to spreamp the you know, the ticking tick point stations at our borders and left the two people on sort of on my basis, to get rid of their fruit. Well, that didn't work, did it. Of course, she can't stop fruit flin coming across the Murray River and or being blown in. I mean, you know, common sense has to prevail here. You can't keep trying hundreds of millions of dollars at something when you know that it's fusile.
Well, I know there's still a fruit fly testing or you know the border checkpoint call it what you like at Sjuna that there earlier this year, but in operation. But anyway, Frank, appreciate your time this morning, and let us know when you get a response from the premiere. Nicholas said a fan it's called in shadow primary Industries, Minister Nicholas and a fan of good morning. What should happen here? Should the government put a pause on the eradication program the throwing away of perfectly good tomatoes?
Good morning, Matthew, thanks for having me. Look, I think you know, the Opposition have been working pretty closely with industry and with the Peak Industry body os EDGE on this issue. And I've met with a number of growers, and I've been in communications with the minister both formally and informally, and I think, Matthew, it is a really difficult issue because we are facing more and more by security risks every day and it is important that we respond to them swiftly and adequately, and it's important that confidence is maintained in the industry. You know, we have three sites affected in South Australia which are currently contained and on the ground, I think there is a lot of angst around the testing process and the message from the glowers growers is pretty clear. They want more to be done to expedite the laboratory testing and ensure that test results are being released immediately, and it's my understanding that pers are trying to speed up that process. However, you know, when you are dealing with interstate facilities, you know that is difficult to control. So we've employed implored the Minister and indeed the Premiere to speak to their account interstate counterpart to really work through those movement control orders that we are seeing in WA and Queensland and potentially in New South Wales and ensure the expedition of the testing process wherever possible, because we really need to prioritize South Australian growers because we are the industry that's most affected at this time, and I think you know, this situation needs leadership. I think we're seeing that from an industry point of view. We just need to see it from a political point of view as well. And I think, you know, if it is is the national position to eradicate this disease. I think that as the government, when we are putting enforcements on individual businesses for the greater good, that is the containment an eradication of these exotic diseases. And absolutely should be consideration for compensation for those businesses for the stock that they have to destroy. And Matthew, I just make the point the government currently have a Bisecurity Act before Parliament, and I've made some comments around that act. Is in my strong view that the role of government should be the continuously reviewed test species and diseases review, the latest science and review response processes to these threats of disease outbreak. You know, at the end of the day, we need to let our farmers farm, and the government's role should be to ensure that they can do that with the confidence to minimize the risk of disease. And can I just make one more comment as well, you know, just on that fruit quality and the blotching. I think this is a bigger question. You know, I've spoken about it before around supermarkets and consumers being educated to consider imperfect fruit. Just because it doesn't look perfect doesn't mean it's not okay to eat physically healthy to eat.
We do like buying the perfect stuff though, as consumers we do.
But why, Matthew.
You know, we just need to be educated.
It doesn't need to look perfect for it to taste good. In fact, some of the best fruits that I've tasted have been the ones that are imperfect and don't look good. Okay, we just need to all open our minds.
I think as a riverland person, Frank's point regarding fruitfly and the millions we spent trying to eradicated in the riverland, are we wasting money? Should we learn to live with fruitfly?
Look, Matthew, there are many outbreak areas in the Riverland that actually haven't had detections of fruit fly for several months. It's just the way that they're being regulated. It means that they cannot actually come out of that outbreak zone until the whole of the region doesn't have any fly fruit fly detections. So, you know, my conversations with those people that are heading up the fruit fly team is that they actually think that they are confident that they are getting on top of this eradication now, you know, we know, I mean you can only look over across the border to know, you know, Victoria, you know, Queensland, all these places that have fruit fly. How difficult it is. Not just for the industry, by the way, but for backyard for people that want to grow trees in their backyard without having you know, maggots when they bite into their piece of fruit, because that is essentially what fruit fly is, biting into a piece of fruit and getting a mouthful of maggots. So, you know, I think that I think that certainly in the Riverland, you know, we're working very very hard to eradicate fruit fly, and I don't think we should be giving up at this point tim time. You know, I think that, like I said, there's there's confidence that's coming out of those people that are you know, at the heart of the program saying look, there are so many areas that we actually haven't had detections in. So you know, I think we've got it. We've got to allow them to continue on with their work.
Nicholas sina Fani, thanks for calling. In thanks for having me shadow primary Industries. Minister David's called in from the Adelaide Hills. David, good morning.
Now, I'm a long term a grow business owner and multi generation about these kind of wars have gone on a grow business forever. Back in the nineties. It was owed by Johnny's disease. I had to have every cow in my dairy heard tests multiple times and it wasn't allowed of sell milk. During that we circule, I proved I was clear. Nobody mentioned it. People I know down Langan's Creek grow grain. They had the flight with the straight stripe mosaic virus in wheat and such things. Nobody mentioned it, but there was affecting your loaf of bread. Now, us as farmers and I find it sad about mister Pangelo's position. If we give up the battle on these things, we will have to either increase the processing of your food, increasing the cost, or use harsh chemicals with environmental consequences to hold these pests at bay, increasing your cost and potentially putting long term poisons into the food cycle. We have an incredible advantage in Australia that a lot of the overseas pests and diseases are not here. If we give up this fight, how long before we start getting stuff like mad cow or yeah, all kinds of horrific diseases that exist overseas, some of which can easily jump to humans and be absolutely horrific. How would it be if we end up with one of those diseases and I struggle for a dame at the moment where a rancid dog or a ka while a bite you and you end up with rape?
All right, David, thank you. It's a fair point, that's for sure.
