ABC News: Food industry officials and others are saying that there is plenty of food in Australia and there is no excuse for major price increases for food in Australia. However, widespread flooding has damaged farming land and supply routes across eastern Australia, and the Federal Government has warned consumers that some food prices will rise because of the inundation.Politicians have united to urge the big supermarket chains to buy locally produced fruit and vegetables and not to resort to cheaper imports to fill their shelves.
But Ausveg CEO Richard Mulcahy says producers from northern Tasmania, not the worst-hit state Queensland, have been hardest hit by flooding.
He says there are enough Australian producers elsewhere to pick up the slack.
“I took my own family into a supermarket last week in a coastal town and their apricots were $10 a kilo,” he said.
“We went into a supermarket near my home in Melbourne [and apricots were] $5 a kilo.
“Clearly it was nothing to do with the weather. It was a case of exploiting the fact that there were a lot of people on holidays and there is a lot of media talking about it and so it sounds believable.
“Certainly there have been farms that have been damaged in [Queensland’s] Lockyer Valley but in terms of supply of produce, the cases cannot be made out that there is an acute shortage at the moment justifying those increases.” Read more at ABC News……
