Making a buck is suddenly very hard again for banana growers, a challenging period for Australian Farms.
The shortage caused by Cyclone Yasi last year pushed prices in the supermarket to $17/kilo, but there’s a massive oversupply now and they are as cheap as chips.
Growers on the north coast of NSW are struggling with other problems as well.
They blame the supermarkets for preferring big bananas and those grown in QLD which have less skin blemishes.
Ron Gray, president of the of the Coffs Harbour banana growers, says prices have plummeted in the supermarket and he’s struggling to make a living.
“After Cyclone Yasi there were less than 100,000 cartons a week coming onto the market.
“Now there are 800,000 cartons and if they had the transport, growers in NSW and Queensland could have put more than a million cartons on the market.
“My income for last week was $600. Out of that I had $400 in labour costs, which doesn’t leave much for myself or anything else.”
Param Git Sidhu (known locally as Sid Sidhu) says the supermarkets aren’t keen on the smaller-sized fruit from his region. This means less 2nd Year Visa Jobs out there!
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