Toni in tuna with plight of graziers hit by drought

A CAIRNS business, which knows first hand the impact of extreme weather conditions and climate, is helping drought-stricken graziers.

Throughout coming weeks Great Barrier Reef Tuna will donate $1 from every sale to the farmer’s drought appeal.

The business is also throwAUCTIONEERS ing out the challenge to other seafood shops to match the funds raised.

“It’s about supporting our primary industries because if we don’t catch it now, we’re going to lose it,” Toni Babich of Great Barrier Reef Tuna said.

“Future generations aren’t going to grow up and be farmers like their dads. They’re going to want to get off the land as quick as they can because they’ve seen the struggles their parents had.”

Ms Babich said without primary industries, such as beef, imported goods from overseas would take over.

“We should support our own country before we worry about importing products from somewhere else,” she said.

“We’ve already got the case where we’ve got fishermen leaving the industry because their licenses are being bought back. We’re eventually going to have no fishing industry and we’re going to have the same thing with our cattle.

“People are going to leave the farm because it will be too hard.”

Ms Babich said, while the fishing and cattle industries were different, they were both reliant on weather and climate.

“It’s similar to what’s happening with the fishing industry. Farmers have got to deal with drought and we’ve got to deal with extreme weather out there as well,” she said.

“If it’s bad weather we’re not fishing and we’ve got to try and survive, so we can kind of get where the farmers get it, they’ve got to survive on the climate and weather.”

Ms Babich is keen to encourage locals to get behind the drought appeal by dropping in to buy some locally caught seafood.

“We’ve got two tuna boats due in this week … and we’ve always got specials on,” she said. “I run specials pretty much weekly.”