Flights save seafood exporters

QUEENSLAND farmers and fishers brought to the brink by international flights being shutdown by the pandemic have been thrown a $1 billion lifeline to get their goods out of the country.

With almost no flights leaving the country, many farmers have struggled to get their product out of the country to sell.

But the Federal Government will today announce another $240 million to keep freight routes open until at least the end of the year, which expected to get $3 billion in agricultural and seafood products out of the country, including about $1 billion from Queensland.

Domestic flights had also been subsidised.

The airfreight includes rock lobster and live fish from the Far North, as well as chilled meats and fresh produce from the salad bowl region around the Darling Downs and Lockyer Valley.

About 90 per cent of airfreight used to leave Australia in passenger flights, which have been cancelled since March.

Torres Strait Seafood director Suzannah Salam said there had been a six-week period when they had not been able to get produce out of the country and, without the flights, the industry would have been crippled.

“If we didn’t have those extra flights, all the fisheries from Bowen to Cooktown would be shutdown. Not just us, but the fishermen and their crews,” Ms Salam said.

She said they had been able to export three to four tonnes of seafood with the flights, down from up to seven tonnes pre-pandemic.