MEAT and Livestock Australia have said pasture dieback cases are so dire they are treating the issue as the “equivalent of an animal disease outbreak”.
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MLA general manager – research, development and innovation Sean Starling said they have a “four stage approach” to deal with dieback – but said first and foremost, it was about finding a cause.
“We’re trying to do two things - stop it advancing any further, and find the cause and hence the cure,” he said.
Mr Starling said MLA were calling on affected producers to contact them immediately, so MLA could organise satellite imagery and aerial drone photographs of affected areas to continue research.
AgForce Central Regional manager Sharon Howard said two recent meetings with State Government officials in Biloela and Moura drew very large crowds.
“There was a huge crowd, and there was an awful lot of frustration,” she said of the Moura meeting.
“We as AgForce still have not heard of any funding stream to investigate what is happening, but we absolutely want to see it as a priority because of the sheer number of people affected.
“There was some talk about trials in southern Australia where they consider it a pest – I would like to see some investigation into that.”
While the first instance Ms Howard heard of dieback in Central Queensland was in Creeping Bluegrass at Gin Gin, she said it had since spread to buffel grass and other non-native species around Banana, Biloela, and Moura.
AgForce South East managers are still trying to assess how far south dieback has spread but producers have reported losses at Dallarnil, Woowoonga and small traces are feared to have shown up at Boompa, all outside of Biggenden.
There are already reports of hundreds if not thousands of acres affected in the Wide Bay Burnett area and producers there fear they are being forgotten as the problem is only new to their region.
Biggenden producer Darren Geissler, profiled by the Queensland Country Life recently, said dieback already posed a serious threat to the area this year.
“We got it just before Christmas in ours and it got to Dallarnil last year,” he said.
“It seems to have just travelled over 18 months down to here with the northerly wind or something.”
