VegNET SA: Boosting farm resilience through industry collaboration
3 March 2026
VegNET Wide Bay Burnett: Agronomist Networking Breakfast strengthens regional connections and industry knowledge
3 March 2026
In October, Tomato potato psyllid (TPP) was found in a backyard located in northern Melbourne. The presence of this invasive pest resulted in the removal of Victoria’s Area Freedom Certificate on 8 December 2025.
Each state and territory has its own approach to regulating hosts and carrier plants nof TPP. Vegetable farmers received the first update from Agriculture Victoria (AgVic) about the removal of the Victoria’s Area Freedom Certificate on 21 November 2025 – just 17 days before the deadline. It cannot be understated how disruptive this was to growers approaching their most productive and profitable period before Christmas.
The first Interstate Certification Assurance (ICA) released on 24 November required all vegetables with green material being sold to Qld to undergo extreme washing protocols – a process that would shred any leafy vegetables going to our biggest market. Tasmania initially would only allow vegetables into the state that had been fumigated or irradiated. Solanaceae and Convolvulaceae produce faced more significant trade restrictions into all other states and territories except WA. AUSVEG Victoria immediately reached out to AgVic to highlight the flaws in the existing protocol and request necessary changes.
VegNET Victoria and VegNET Gippsland took on the responsibility of communicating the constantly evolving situation to members and conveying growers’ needs back to AgVic. For VegNET Victoria, this involved bulk emails to our mailing list and hundreds of phone calls and individual emails per week to growers. These communications fostered substantial discussions of what the trade restrictions meant for their lines of produce and how to navigate the accreditation processes. VegNET also produced guidance extension material for growers and provided help to market agents, nursery growers and processing companies.
Critically, the different state governments were not immovable in their trade restrictions. VegNET was able to convey the concerns and needs of growers to AgVic, which was responsible for continuously negotiating trade protocols and ICAs. VegNET was also able to secure meetings with the Qld and Tasmanian market access teams to put forward the grower’s case. With the backlog of growers seeking accreditation, both Qld and Tas granted Victorian growers a two-week grace period leading up to Christmas. In the extreme turmoil facing the industry, this offered some critical relief.
The key learning highlighted from these experiences is the need to include growers in the biosecurity response discussions at the highest level. The difference between the initial proposed trade protocols and those now implemented are night and day.
If growers had been consulted before the protocols were released, many of these changes would not have been necessary.
While green leafy vegetables now have a clear pathway to continue trading interstate, more work must be done to ensure Solanaceae and Convolvulaceae produce can be traded efficiently.
VegNET is continuing to engage with governments including AgVic to support growers.
How to get PS-60 accreditation for your business.