The NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) is funding a four-year $5 million horticulture innovation scheme to ensure fruit quality of citrus orchards in Griffith.
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NSW DPI biosecurity officer Lloyd Kingham said the project “aims to document and clearly demonstrate we are maintaining fruit quality and satisfying biosecurity requirements of domestic and export trade.”
Vito Mancini, citrus grower, Secretary for the Griffith District Citrus Growers Association, and one of the six participants in the scheme, has been sending fruit to Western Australia under the system.
Mr Mancini said he congratulates the NSW DPI for investing in developing the new processes which will mean opening Australia’s ability to trade more internationally.
Yet, Mr Mancini wonders why such an initiative has taken so long to get started as the risk of fruit fly is “so inherently low”.
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“To my knowledge, there has never been a detection of Queensland fruit fly internationally from Australian produce,” Mr Mancini said.
“At this point in time, most export markets require us to do a minimum of 14 days of a cold treatment.
“We hold the fruit at a certain temperature for 14 days to be able to certify there is no fruit fly in the fruit.”
The difficulty of course is getting immediate access to fruit via airfreight, as the fruit must be held for 14 days.
“It’s virtually impossible,” Mr Mancini said.
However, the systems-based approach will allow greater management of the risk of fruit fly.
“By using science to make sure an orchard has got enough data collected to say there is virtually no risk of fruit fly being in that orchard,” he said.
“The CA15 will initially allow us to trade nationally with other states such as South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia who currently don’t have the Queensland fruit fly, to be able to gather enough data and evidence to be able to then move on internationally and open up the markets that way.”
The system is being rolled out domestically, and treated as if the fruit were being sent internationally – under international sanitary protocols.
Mr Mancini said the findings of the system should allow for the program to be rolled out to international partners.
“The really good part of the system is if there is a detection of fruit fly, it allows us to implement control measures such as baiting or trapping to help eliminate any flies in the orchard.”
