Wellington, Feb 14 NZPA
Australian apple and pear growers are begging their government for technical tools to help identify the bacterial disease fireblight, which they fear could be introduced by New Zealand apples.
Australia banned imports of New Zealand pipfruit or trees for over 90 years.
In recent decades, growers used allegations that New Zealand apples could spread fireblight as a non-tariff trade barrier, but the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruled against that practice.
A grower lobby, Apple and Pear Australia today asked a Senate inquiry to lobby the Australian government for $A40 ($NZ53) million in funding to develop a tool farmers could use in the field to identify the bacterial disease, AAP reported.
“Once it gains a foothold in the country it remorselessly spreads,” Riverina Citrus executive officer Dominic Testoni told a hearing in Canberra today. He suggested that because fireblight had never been seen in Australia many growers would find it difficult to identify the disease.
However, there is scientific evidence that Australia has had fireblight for decades, even though none has been formally reported in apple or pear orchards.
A New Zealand scientist, Chris Hale, found fireblight on a cotoneaster in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens while on holiday there in 1997, and brought samples back to New Zealand for testing. Another NZ scientist reported fireblight on the same species in Adelaide’s botanic gardens.
At a Senate inquiry into biosecurity Liberal Senator Heffernan today strongly backed the farmers, suggesting fireblight would easily spread through actions such as throwing an apple core out a school bus window.
“Haven’t we got a case where we can tell `em to go to hell?,” Senator Heffernan asked.
But New Zealand scientists have produced evidence that fireblight bacteria are not transferred on clean, ripe fruit and argued at the WTO that mature symptomless fruit posed no risk of infection.
A WTO panel found 16 scientific inconsistencies in quarantine measures sought by Australia, which now has to propose a time frame to bring its import risk analysis into conformity with the WTO’s decision.
Access to the Australian market is estimated to be worth $30m to New Zealand growers.
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