A powerful hail storm that cut a swathe from Alstonville to Byron Bay has left millions of dollars in damage and shaken the confidence of many in the North Coast horticultural industry.
Local Land Services will file a report with the state government today, from which it will decide who, if anyone, receives disaster assistance funding in the wake of the November 5 event. The macadamia industry will record the greatest share of crop loss – $8m or 15 per cent of the projected Northern Rivers’ harvest.
Brooklet blueberry growers Otto, Lynette and Jascha Saek, lost nearly $1m worth of spring and summer fruit – which would have sold at premium prices – and will make do without an income for the next nine months. Fifty casual staff have been stood down.
“Considering harvest labour accounts for 70 per cent of the crop’s return, that means $650,000 gone from our local economy,” said Mr Saeck, who was one of the few blueberry pioneers when he planted his first varieties 30 years ago. This month’s storm was by far the worst in that time, although he acknowledged a hailstorm of some sort tended to arrive every five years or so.
About 75 per cent of plants growing under ‘extremely expensive’ hail net survived, with high winds causing most of the the damage. But the cost is too great for the return and it is unlikely the Saecks will erect any more of it.
Those trees under light-weight bird net, designed to keep fruit bats at bay, were stripped bare just as they were flush with new growth. These bushes are now being pruned back severely, to get rid of damaged wood which may become a vector for disease. Mr Saeck estimates 15-20 loss of individual bushes.
At Newrybar, closer to the coast, Robert and Robyn Hood’s stonefruit orchard felt the weight of hail on its nets, resulting in $150,000 in damage equal to their total crop return.
In the Macadamia industry 60 growers were affected by the storm, reporting an average loss of 30-40 per cent of their total crop, estimated at 15 per cent of the Northern Rivers’ projected harvest, or $8m, plus another half million in structural damage to roads and orchard floors.
Growers not confident of assistance
Australian Macadamia Society CEO Jolyon Burnett said growers understood there would be no government assistance for crop loss, with nutlets at fingernail size smashed to the ground. Growers would have to take the blow on the chin – more painful in a year of good prices.
Funding for infrastructure, if it arrives at all, will be slow in coming if the sequence of events after Cyclone Debbie is anything to go by. In that extreme event Queensland producers were awarded greater funding, earlier, than for those in NSW.
Mr Saeck suggested a national insurance scheme funded by producers with the aim of supporting farming during disaster.
Mr Burnett agreed, saying government had suggested to the macadamia society in the past that growers take out their own crop insurance, but for average sized macadamia growers that would represent a quarter of their income,” he said.
“I don’t want any more loans,” said stone fruit grower Robert Hood whose loss this season came on top of difficult years in the subtropical stonefruit business. “Loans from the government are no good to me.”
Meanwhile, a new generation of producers has taken a different approach, asking for help through social media.
Twenty-something start-up organic farmers Caine Nichols and Aaron Davidson, Rous Mill via Alstonville, lost their entire 4.5ha crop of mixed market vegetable – pulversised by ice from the sky as large and round as ‘cricket balls’.
A $30,000 investment in some 20,000 cabbages destined for sauerkraut were now the value of compost. The pair turned to crowd funding to get them out of their financial bind and in the past week raised $2600, 10 per cent of their goal, from 24 people.
