What Saul forgets is that banana growers and other primary producers are price takers, not price makers. Bananas and other produce is forwarded to markets in the capital cities where they are offered for sale.
If cattle men send their cattle to sale and the price offered is too low they have an option of paying freight to take their cattle home again and offering them on another day.
But, bananas, other fruit and vegetables are perishable products. If they are offered for sale and the price is low they don't have an option of returning that fruit to the trees. They have to take the price.
The big retailers, like Woolworths, sometimes offer direct contracts to farmers, but their offered prices will be determined by supply and demand.
In this district, the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, the vegetable and fruit farmers are increasingly leaving the industry because the prices they receive don't cover the costs of production. This year, because their land was not flooded they are getting good prices for capsicums, tomatoes, zucchini etc. But last year their crops were destroyed by a November frost and every year many crops are destroyed by hail storms. So it is an ill wind that blows no good.
Cyclones and floods have destroyed crops in other areas, allowing the farmers here for short while to make a small profit.

Can’t make up for whom you are treading; the farmers, the banks?

Saul may have a point when it comes to other crops, but he simply doesn't understand bananas. Growers don't produce one crop per year, like many other fruit farmers. They pick all the year round. Even if a few lost all mature trees (which is highly improbable), these trees have suckers coming through that will produce fruit within a few weeks. Most growers in Tully and Innisfail will have crews out harvesting today.

Regarding biosecurity, most growers are tightly concentrated in the Tully and Innisfail region. Any disease that gets in will quickly spread, because of proximity. The main thing that we can do to protect the industry is to have more growers outside this region.

Lastly, most growers are amazingly wealthy. Their workers are some of the hardest working and poorest members of our society. Concern about the farmers is misplaced.

Japan imports Philippine bananas, and the Japanese are amongst the fussiest of consumers so if there had been any diseases rampant amongst the bananas from the Philippines, then no imports would ever have taken place.
But it seems some Australians are even fussier, and they trot out the old disease bogeyman again. I remember how the price of bananas shot up after Cyclone Larry when we lived in the Illawarra, but here in the Philippines, we eat a variety of bananas any day of the week, and all within our price range.
Even papayas are cheap, compared to the outrageous prices at your friendly local chain store supermarket duopoly.

Actually Saul, you haven't done your homework. Black Sigatoka is an airborne disease, carried by spores, not a soil-borne one. There is a very real biosecurity threat from importing fresh bananas into this country. This is a typical economist argument that ignores the long-term risks for a short term economic gain. Also, a short term economic gain for who exactly? Importers? The Philipine banana industry?

Biosecurity risks are real to our industry and managing them and keeping diseases out is important for our own export market access. Economists casually describing the discussion of the real risks of importing diseases that could further devastate an already devastated industry as 'trotting out the ususal canards', is grossly irresponsible.

Perhaps when you do your homework, you should ask someone who works in biosecurity?

Benk:

Quote..."Lastly, most growers are amazingly wealthy. Their workers are some of the hardest working and poorest members of our society. Concern about the farmers is misplaced".

...“Squatter” is the historic term for modern day farmer, and carried a more honest stigma.

sure, farmer's lobby groups will seek to stiffle free trade through trumped up biosecurity bs, but that's a separate issue to farmers who can meet demand attracting more profit when a natural disaster constricts supply. of all the criticisms that could be directed at markets this seems the least credible.

the next thing saul will be suggesting is fixed prices and rationing.

Is it fair then for farmers to ask that they be able import cheap labour from the Phillipines(or wherever), instead of subsidising wages here?
Why does free marketeering only stretch so far.

Maybe we can import a few economists too.

Saul's central argument - that it is difficult to defend protectionism in the banana or horticultural industry when our broader economic and industry policy is firmly free-market - is hard to refute. Australia has been an unrelenting lobbyist for free trade in agricultural products for decades, setting us apart from all other affluent nations other than New Zealand. It is likely that other countries will eventually call our bluff when we try to use phytosanitary concerns to block imports - as New Zealand recently did successfully, by appealing to the WTO tribunal our decision to block NZ apples.

Nevertheless I think there are very good reasons that we should have some protectionist measures in place. Let's not hide behind quarantine concerns, let's just get out there and say that agriculture is not like all other industries, and warrants some special treatment. Because:
* Food is a basic essential - more like air and water than it is like flat screen TVs or shoes. Retaining domestic food production capacity is a national security issue.
* Food production can't start and stop in response to price signals. If land is retired from production, and the skills to grow food decline, there is an extent to which these changes are irreversible.
* The global food system is coming under enormous pressure from growing demand and a declining resource base, and faces enormous challenges due to climate change and peak oil. Maintaining local food production makes sense as a risk mitigation strategy in the face of these challenges.

Perhaps the National Food Plan that the Federal government is now preparing will map out the role of continued local food production?

Some comments in response, from Growcom - the peak horticulture organisation in Queensland:

From sucker to producing bananas takes 6-8 mths, not a couple of weeks. Crews are not out harvesting today.

Banana growers are in a price-taking industry and are not ‘amazingly wealthy’ by any stretch of the imagination.

Bananas only grow in certain tropical and sub-tropical regions. Most of these areas are cyclone prone.

Japan can import Philippine bananas because Japan does not have a domestic banana growing industry that would be harmed by diseases carried on them. There is no risk to human health from these diseases, just to the plants. Although Philippine bananas have been approved for import to Australia subject to biosecurity checks for some time, no one from the Philippines has thus far applied to import them into Australia.

As one of the commentaters notes, the diseases that affect bananas are air-borne and can affect the fruit, not just the plant.

Biosecurity for Australia is managed by an independent body, known as the Biosecurity Australia and funded by the federal government. Biosecurity Australia make their scientific decisions based on protecting Australia from disease, not economic competition. If countries believe that quarantine is being used as defacto protectionism, they can take a case to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for a binding ruling. No such case has been taken on behalf of foreign bananas.

For a more detailed response to Mr Eslake's article, please see our media release

http://www.growcom.com.au/home/news_detail.asp?newsID=39

Sorry, the internet address given in the previous posting was missing a digit. The correct media release can be found here:

http://www.growcom.com.au/home/news_detail.asp?newsID=393

Perhaps Saul Eslake could research the components that make up the price of bananas or of any other primary product for that matter.

Given the farmer's exposure to all sorts of risks (weather, pests, diseases, highly variable costs of inputs, labour shortages, credit restrictions, highly flexible market prices, non-renewal of supply contracts, etc), the farmer should get the dominant share. It indeed would surprise if the farmer's share were greater than either the wholesaler's or retailer's share of the retail price of bananas.

Growcom

352 261 cartons of bananas were shipped out of North Queensland last week. See http://www.abgc.org.au/?industry/consignments/transport for mor details. The cyclone did-not destroy every single tree. Those trees with bunches were most vulnerable, but large suckers were fairly safe.

Too late now Bugsy, the politicians have gone bananas allowing NZ apples into Aus [and possibly fireblight to follow later], wait for the fruitcake behaviour of the public when most of our apples cannot be purchased due to disease.

More disease infested trade on the Agenda with NZ and other countries. Give in to a couple of countries importing high risk fruit and vegetables, the other countries jump up and down "why not ours"? and Aus will have the whole party included.

Hey, Yabby, that's global trading and having the free market! Diseased fruit veg and meat being one of the bonuses!

If equine influenza hit during 2007, avian diseases, and other animal diseases now present in Australia, prepare for fireblight as a certain event.

Not at all impressed with the attitude that if there is a problem with an industry in this country, the answer is to import from another country.

The answer is not to apply effort to fix the problem and continue with the industry, but to import from another country instead.

In this case there is a problem with banana crops in Australia being affected by cyclones, so we don’t apply any effort to fix this problem and continue with the banana industry, we just import bananas from the Philippines instead.

We are fast becoming the “lazy country.

Whatever the issues, I know I get good bananas from Queensland when I shop - but I won't pay above $5 a kilo no matter how desperate I am for a banana - I'll just have to be content to leave bananas for the rich folk - just like housing.
As for a lot of the other fruit and vegies on supermarket shelves - what happens to it?
• 'Australian' oranges... often kept until very old and squashed against one another in the packaging , contain hard and dry segments, and most have no flavour.
• 'Australian' apples... small, generally bruised, flowery and bland.
• 'Australian' peaches....bruised, small, mostly turn half rotten in two or three days, and tasteless.
• Melons...bruised, under-ripe and tasteless.
• Tomatoes... bruised and tasteless.
• Plums…bruised and generally tasteless.
• Potatoes…rotten on the inside.
• Onions…rotten on the inside.
And it’s been like this for thirty-five years, that I know of!
It would seem, that the Australian farmer sends his best produce overseas and the Australian consumer is required to purchase what’s left of the high-priced scraps - so is it any wonder the Aussie consumer recoils at what they’re expected to pay.
Perhaps the Australian farmers need to band together; create their own fruit and veggie outlets and forget the greedy supermarket chains who delight in ripping off, all of us.
Maybe only then, will we get the product we’re attempting to pay for!

Rock collector gets poor fruit from his supermarket. We have two fruit shops at our shopping centre with excellent fruit and vegs, plus specials for yesterdays and bruised fruit so that they arent wasted.
The two supermarkets have more expensive fruit and often less fresh.

There are also farmers markets.

Dont think 'supermarket' first.