Doubt plan could add real value
BURDEKIN MP Dale Last wants to see a fruit and vegetable processing plant, including a cannery, built at Bowen.
Mr Last said the viability of a cannery, along with processing in the form of pastes and vitamin extracts, was something that needed to be investigated with urgency.
Mr Last said he was not just talking about value- adding for tomato and capsicum crops, but food products grown all over North Queensland including pineapples from around Rollingstone and bananas from the Far North.
“Picture a pallet of tomatoes or capsicums and then picture a pallet of vitamin supplements made from tomatoes and capsicums. You can see the advantages. And if you build close to the railway line and the highway you can move it around the country,” he said.
Mr Last’s plan has not excited Carl Walker, a farmer and president of the Bowen- Gumlu Grower’s Association.
He said a cannery “is not going to happen” as facilities such as SPC Ardmona continued to struggle to survive in the face of competition from cheap overseas canned products.
Mr Walker said to be viable, Australia’s canned fruit and vegetable industry would have to overtake cheap imported products in sales.
He said that while cheap, canned imports flooded into the country, the canning industry main on the ropes.
“What has to happen is that we have to convince consumers to buy Australian- grown produce and not imported canned fruit and vegetables,” he said.
“Canneries have closed or are struggling to stay afloat in Australia because people are buying the cheap imported product.”
Mr Walker said retail executives enjoyed telling the media that they had to do the best for their shareholders and that the way for them to maximise returns was to buy the cheapest product but that led to unemployment and drove the national economy down.
“If consumers were prepared to pay 30c more for a can of Australian- grown food, it would help our farmers. It would create jobs and build taxation. It would be good for the national economy,” he said.
“I don’t think Australians, Australian would re- if you asked them if they would be prepared to pay a little bit more for canned food, they would say ‘ no’.”
Mr Walker said his organisation wanted to add value to the crops they grew.
He said his grower members had no intention of supporting any value- adding project that was not viable for the long- term.
“We want a value- adding model that will grow with our industry,” he said.
Mr Walker said many of the tomato varieties grown at Bowen were not suitable for canning or processing.
He said they were tomatoes bred to be sold into a fresh market and did not lend themselves to processing.
Bowen- based Whitsunday Regional councillor Mike Brunker said “study after study” had been done on the viability of a cannery.
He said all of the studies had given the concept the thumbs- down.
“A cannery is not the answer. We don’t have a full year growing season for supply anyway,” he said.
Cr Brunker said farmers were looking to value- add their product through the manufacture of products such as spices, powders and jams.
“It’s not as easy as it sounds, but finding value- added food products that suit this area will happen eventually,” he said.
Mr Last said he was in the process of trying to secure funding for a feasibility study into what the best sort of value- adding model might be for the Bowen- Burdekin area.