Australia: Imports threaten fruit and vegetables

Australia's self sufficiency in fruit and vegetables will face a growing threat from a flood of imports in the next decade. Future Focus, a report on the horticulture industry, warns that the import risk is a serious threat to the profitability of the Australian horticulture industry. The issue is expected to emerge as fresh fruit prices continue rising, leading to lower consumption of both fresh fruit and vegetables.

Future Focus, the Australian Horticulture Plan, aims to provide a strategy to deliver tangible commercial outcomes that are relevant to the industry.
The report found that an increase in exports would be the greatest improvement to the industry's profitability saying they believe there is a clear opportunity to increase Australia's exports, particularly to northern hemisphere markets, and improve profitability.
But the horticulture sector was failing to improve quality and differentiate products, a commodity culture threatened export growth, and Australia's export performance fell short of that achieved by countries such as Chile, South Africa and New Zealand.
Australia exported just 383,350 tons of horticultural products in 2004-05, compared with Chile's 2.448 million tons, South Africa's 2.6 million tons and NZ's 891,974 tons. Despite Australia's vast size, NZ exports nearly 15 times more apples and two-and-a-half times more vegetables.

HAL’s John Webster said Australian exporters often stopped supply to overseas markets to capture peaks on domestic markets, while other southern hemisphere exporters had maintained supply and earned more credibility as suppliers.