Hailstorm ruins crops

FARMERS across the Granite Belt are calling on the government for recovery support after they were left devastated by a severe hailstorm last Thursday, which damaged their produce and hail netting.

The huge storm that swept over the Granite Belt on Thursday dropping “tennis ball-sized” hail, caused extensive damage to farms and devastated farmers.

Granite Belt Growers Association president and Eastern Colour director Nathan Baronio said the sheer volume of the hail in the past week was destructive to many farms in the region.

“The two hailstorms hit the same line, farmers that got hit once, got hit again,” he said.

“Farmers lost a lot of their crop, it’s pretty demoralising.”

Mr Baronio said the strawberries (pictured) and apples at his Applethorpe farm were damaged.

“Our outside strawberries got cleaned up, we’ve had to pull the fruit off and get ready for the flush,” he said.

This resulted in losing a lot of the strawberries he would have sold in the next few weeks.

Mr Baronio said he was fortunate to have tunnels over 70 per cent of the strawberries, which prevented significant damage, but said other farms in the region weren’t so lucky.

The apple trees at Eastern Colour were damaged but were manageable as the apples weren’t yet at a mature stage.

Mr Baronio said the situation was worsened by profit margins for farmers being quite low, leaving fewer funds to pay for the clean-up.

He said this was driven by dropping market prices for fruit despite rising production costs.

With the Granite Belt already a hail-prone region, Mr Baronio called on the government for support to help affected producers recover from hailstorm damage.

“Why do cyclones and natural events get particular recovery funding and relief but widespread hailstorms don’t? It’s a bit silly,” he said. “Governments overseas hold their primary producers in a lot higher stead than in Australia.”