AU: Farmers desperate for help to defend fruit

Citrus fruit growers are raising fears about the possibility of disease reaching the mainland via Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. A disease known as citrus greening has decimated large parts of the sector including areas in the United States and South America. The disease leaves fruit sour and misshapen. It eventually kills trees. "Once it gains a foothold in a country, it spreads until it has contaminated every productive farming region," Riverina Citrus chairman Frank Mr Battistel said on Monday. In the US, the highly lucrative fruit-growing state of Florida has watched greening suck $300 million from the economy. "Citrus greening not only destroys production but would also ruin our clean and green image, impacting on our chances to export," Mr Battistel said. His comments came as a Senate inquiry into biosecurity heard from other fruit growers about another disease - fireblight.
After decades of successfully blocking New Zealand's fireblight-afflicted apples from the Australian market, the fruit will soon be allowed in. Liberal senator Bill Heffernan strongly backed the farmers, suggesting fireblight would easily spread through actions such as throwing an apple core out a school bus window. "Haven't we got a case where we can tell `em to go to hell'," Senator Heffernan asked. Apple and Pear Australia has asked the inquiry to lobby the government for $40 million in funding to help a cooperative research centre develop a tool farmers could use in the field to identify fireblight. Because fireblight has never been seen in Australia many growers will find it difficult to identify the disease.