Cheap Italian imports and crop rot due to continuing wet weather could cripple Australia's kiwifruit industry, according to a grower on Queensland's Gold Coast.
Mt Tamborine grower Bruce Condon said he only has three weeks to pick the trees on his 6ha property before fruit rotted on the vine, News Ltd. reported.
"If the rain comes and fruit keeps ripening, we can't process it when it's wet. It gets mildew and mould," Mr Condon said.
"It's been a difficult year because we were not able to spray for fruit fly because of the weather."
Mr Condon has grown kiwifruit for 26 years and he predicted cheap imports would decimate the Australian industry.
"In the next five or six years there will not be a kiwi grown in Australia," said Mr Condon.
At the moment growers are barely scraping buy, with domestic kiwifruit prices around A$2 per kg.
Italian and French kiwifruit are imported during the local growing period but, according to Mr Condon, local retailers continue to use imports even once the Australian fruit is online.
"It overlaps the time when Australian fruit is ready and the merchants keep buying theirs. Australians are getting pushed out," he said.
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