The Tri-State Fruit Fly Committee says the South Australian Riverland’s fruit fly-free areas will be at risk if the Victorian Government scales back its fruit fly program.
The Victorian Government says combating fruit fly has become a lost cause and it has declared the pest endemic across the state, except in the Sunraysia.
But the chairman of the Tri-State Fruit Fly Committee Andrew Green says a fruit fly outbreak in the Riverland would devastate the local industry.
“If we did have an outbreak here, it would cost our industry something like $4.5 million a year in treatment costs for citrus alone, which relates to about $150 per tonne for our growers,” he said.
“It would basically make our industry unviable.
“We’ve had something like 200 fruit fly outbreaks across the border into Victoria and up into New South Wales in recent times, so as a state we are totally surrounded now so it really heightens the prospect of having an outbreak.”