PANAMA OUTBREAK Town is ready to face threat
THE small town of Tully was quiet yesterday as growers and residents learnt of the first confirmed Panama detection to hit the region since Bevan Robson’s farm in 2015.
But Tully Chamber of Commerce president Christine Boric said no one was too worried compared to the “doom and gloom” that swept the town the first time.
“I haven’t heard anything, it has been very quiet,” she said.
“I suppose when it was the first time it happened in the district. It was like a death knell on bananas. I think there was a lot of false information going around.”
The Robson family’s 137ha farm was bought for $4.5 million and shut down last year to stop the spread of the devastating soil-borne fungus.
But several Far North banana growers declined to comment yesterday on the latest outbreak.
“This time they realise it is not the death of everything, they can just control it that’s all – which I hope I am right,” Ms Boric said. “The town will be better informed more than anything.”
Robson family daughter Heidi Quagliata, who still lives in the Tully region, said it was upsetting and “not the news we wanted to hear”.
“Now that they know it is a true positive, they got a direction they can go in, not sitting in limbo and continue on growing,” she said. “Probably being a bigger farm you can spread the overall pressure among them all.”
Mareeba District Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association president Joe Moro compared the news to when papaya fruit fly was found on the Tablelands.
He said such troubled farmers.
“It is a terrible news for the industry overall,” he said.
Kennedy MP Bob Katter said Panama could “cripple” the region and called for an aggressive approach to it.
“There will be many who disagree with my statement, but the Government should be moving unequivocally and unapologetically to eradicate the disease,” he said. outbreaks