In Parliament Mr McCurdy stated, “I urge the Victorian Government to meet with our fruit growers and do more to help our local communities stop the spread of fruit fly and diseases that eternally affect our farmers.
“With the impact of Covid this year and labour shortage our growers face a much bigger problem at hand.
“If the fruit is not harvested, it rots on the trees and then we get fruit fly outbreaks, and it becomes a much bigger issue for the entire farming sector.
“For apples it is a little wider of course, you get a lot more time to take them off, but certainly for apricots and nectarines there is a very narrow window which is an even better reason to make sure the labour force is available to our regional farmers and if not what the next step is.
“I wish to thank all of our regional fruit growers across the Ovens Valley who continue to be proactive in reducing the impact of fruit fly from town trees and vegetable patches.
“Some measures that we can all take to reduce the impact of fruit fly this summer include, installing insect-proof netting, placing bags and sleeves over fruit, or installing outdoor gazebos with zippers, exercising good garden hygiene, disposing of unwanted produce properly and monitoring for fruit fly activity*.
“The Government needs to understand that this fruit fly issue not only affects production, selling and export of fine quality fruit, but the livelihood of our regional fruit growers and their families,” he said.
For more information on measures that can be taken visit:
https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/biosecurity/pest-insects-and-mites/priority-pest-insects-and-mites/queensland-fruit-fly/controlling-queensland-fruit-fly-in-home-gardens.
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