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.