Another Banana Story

Ever since Cyclone Larry decided to drop in for a visit in Northern Queensland, it wiped out most of the country's bananas crop in March.
Like anything on demand & supply, the price of bananas is a whopping $15 per Kg. Don't cuci your mata. I did not make a typo mistake. Yeah, it is $15 a Kg.
A Banana a day is part of my daily lunch and with the high price is " Chiak kim".
The government is thinking of importing bananas to ease the shortage.

Banana imports planned to ease shortage

By Asa Wahlquist and Jennifer Sexton

June 16, 2006

AUSTRALIANS could be eating imported bananas within months under a proposal to make them available in selected fruit shops and supermarkets.

The plan, if adopted, will come too late to offer immediate relief to consumers, who have been paying up to $15/kg since Cyclone Larry wiped out most of the country's crop in northern Queensland in March. Local banana prices are expected to fall by the end of the year as plantations recover.

Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran rejected calls earlier this year to fast-track imports, which are being pushed by the Philippines Government. But the Government's quarantine assessment and policy advice body Biosecurity Australia will shortly ask for submissions on a draft plan to import bananas.

The plan will be considered by a panel of scientists and Biosecurity Australia quarantine director Joanna Hewitt, in a process that is likely to take six months to a year.

While retailers contacted yesterday declined to back the call for imports for fear of upsetting local growers, many are frustrated at the lack of alternative supplies to ease the shortage.

In a submission to Biosecurity Australia, Filipino growers provide assurances they can produce export-quality fruit with adequate biological safeguard.

Although other countries such as Ecuador and Costa Rica are big exporters of bananas, no application to import bananas from those countries has been made. The local industry is free of a range of diseases that affect bananas in The Philippines.

Australian Consumers Association food policy officer Clare Hughes said as long as the imported fruit met Australian standards and carried no risk of disease or pests, consumers should be given a choice. "If they are meeting a need and consumers are prepared to buy them, you cannot necessarily stop (importation), just because it's going to create competition for local farmers," she said.

Source: The Australian