IT is looking more likely that Queensland banana growers will have to learn to live with Panama disease tropical race 4.
According to the National Management Group (NMG) in charge of monitoring the fungus outbreak which has been found on a farm in Tully and one in Mareeba, it is “not technically feasible to eradicate the fungal pathogen in Queensland”.
The announcement is based on advice taken from scientific experts of the Consultative Committee for Emergency Plant Pests (CCEPP), which concluded eradication was not feasible based on
the best available scientific evidence.
The NMG is the peak decision-making body for national responses to emergency plant pests under the Emergency Plant Pest Response Deed.
The body consists of the chief executive officers of national and state and territory departments of primary industries across Australia, along with the Australian Banana Growers Council (ABGC) and Nursery and Garden Industry Australia as the affected industry parties.
Despite the two detections, north Queensland’s other 280 banana farms are continuing banana production as usual.
Banana growers will be asked to pay a voluntary 1c/kg levy to help reimburse those growers whose farms have been quarantined after being infected by the banana plant fungus.
Last week, the ABGC and Biosecurity Queensland scientific specialists drafted minimum risk standards for Panama TR4-infected properties to continue operations.
ABGC chairman Doug Phillips said the three-day meeting included discussions on how to address biosecurity standards, as well as the needs of banana-farming operations.
He said he hoped the standards would be finalised by Biosecurity Queensland this week.
“The protocol will set out the steps that growers need to follow to make sure they have the standards in place that will allow them to keep producing bananas if TR4 is found on part of their farms,” Mr Phillips said.
The ABGC informed about 400 people at three meetings in Mareeba, Tully and Innisfail last week about the voluntary levy and the new protocols.
Mr Phillips said growers at the meetings were “generally supportive” of both measures.
“Banana growers are determined to contain TR4 and to ramp up their on-farm biosecurity measures.”
The voluntary levy will start from April 27.
It will be used to reimburse operators of the farms infected by TR4 while they wait for the minimum standards protocol to be made available.
The level of grower support in paying the voluntary fee and its collection will be monitored to determine how long the fee will need to be in place.
At the time of writing, the ABGC was also waiting to hear about its requests to the Queensland and federal governments for funding assistance to TR4-affected growers, and for other growers who needed to introduce biosecurity measures to their farms.
Queensland’s acting chief biosecurity officer Malcolm Letts said while the standards were being finalised, biosecurity officers had been working with the two affected properties to ensure interim measures were introduced to allow them to restart farming operations as soon as possible.
“However, these protocols are not just about getting the two properties currently under quarantine back to business,” Mr Letts said.
“These arrangements are being developed as a set of standards which could be applied to any infected property as we move forward with this response.
“The detection of the second infected property increases the likelihood that the disease will be detected on more properties, which is why this overarching set of protocols is necessary.
“However, further surveillance is needed to confirm this, and it is still likely to be a number of months before the extent of the outbreak is known.”
