Vanishing horticulture

TALK of becoming China's food bowl is ridiculous given the state of Australian horticulture, writes LESLIE WHITE

Most politicians haven't noticed, but much of Australian horticulture is on the verge of collapse.

This month, major Tasmanian grower Premium Fresh fell; Queensland businesses SP Exports and Barbera Farms went earlier this year.

Since 2010, some 669 food processing workers have lost their jobs as Heinz, SPC Ardmona, McCain and National Foods closed six facilities.

SPC last week cut and reduced more grower contracts.

The supermarkets are slaughtering local processors and farmers alike.

Some repeat the mantra that the growth of the middle classes in Asia, mostly China, will see demand for Australian produce skyrocket, resulting in Aussie farmers bathing in their gold-plated swimming pools by their private golf courses.

PM Julia Gillard repeats this rhetoric.

Well, here's some news.

Australia's horticulture sector may well be gone by the time this predicted boon arrives.

And we don't yet have market access to export most of our produce to China anyway - our access is for citrus, mangoes and table grapes.

In India we have better access but are granted almost no "import permits", so export is difficult. Our cherries and stonefruit are no longer allowed into Thailand and difficult protocols strangle the table grapes and citrus trade, with rejection levels of up to 20 per cent when produce arrives.

Premier Ted Baillieu has gone to China promoting our horticulture, but his government is pulling DPI and fruit fly funding, leaving Sunraysia the only "pest free area" area - produce from elsewhere will require extra treatment to be exported and face stricter protocols.

Among the many reasons horticulture is struggling are:

A TOXIC reliance on a supermarket duopoly which has too much power and faces little regulation.

LACK of access to export markets, which exacerbates growers' reliance on the duopoly and stifles industry growth.

THE extinction of tinned Australian produce as supermarkets import almost all tinned stock.

Supermarket shelves once filled with local produce are replacing it with imports, leaving farmers with nowhere to sell produce.

Horticulture is a domestically focused industry; Australia produces barely more fruit and veg than it consumes.

We export less than 7 per cent of our vegetables, while 80 per cent of our tinned and frozen vegetables are imports.

And the gateway (and potentially, future bottleneck) for sending produce to export markets - horticultural exporters - are being destroyed as well. There were 300 exporters in 2007; there are 220 today.

Fruit and vegetable exports have declined by $200 million to $497 million since 2009-10.

On weekends, exporters say they're charged a weekend fee of $240 plus $272/hour for inspection. Many no longer trade on weekends.

The 40 per cent rebate on these Australian Quarantine Inspection Service charges was stripped in July, and some exporters registrations' have increased from $600 to $8000 a year. So, assuming horticulture growers are left in 30 years and China starts beating the door down for our food in line with the prophecy, there could be very few exporters left to send the produce.

We desperately need market access around the world, and importantly, to China.

But negotiating with China is notoriously difficult and Australia is embarrassingly bad at it.

Years from now China will need to grant us access, but we need that access now so our growers survive to 2020 or 2030.

Growers need to be able to tell supermarkets which pay low prices that they can export their produce instead.

Market access is a matter of urgency.

The number of federal staff working on export market issues should be quadrupled if necessary.

Also, we need either a supermarket ombudsman with genuine powers or the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission needs some teeth.

And exporters need help, not hindrance, from government.

Lowering ridiculous inspection charges would be a start, along with reducing costs for registering and running businesses.

If our growers and exporters don't get serious attention from government soon, China will be forced to look elsewhere to feed its middle class.

• Leslie White is The Weekly Times' national affairs writer