The week’s top stories (week ending 26/02/19)
Every week, AUSVEG rounds up the top stories on issues affecting the Australian vegetable industry. Here are this week’s most important news items:
Australian industry:
- Aussie fruit and vegetable prices surge in wake of natural disasters (9News)
- Flood-ravaged north-west Queenslanders urge BOM to fix radar ‘black spots’ (Zara Margolis and Kelly Butterworth, ABC Western Queensland)
- NQ hort carries on after major floods (Ashley Walmsley, North Queensland Register)
- Port Macquarie lettuce under attack from the sun (Robert Dougherty, Port Macquarie News)
- Government accused of ‘undue secrecy’ over refusal to release Murray-Darling Basin Plan legal advice (Anna Henderson, ABC News)
- Farmers ‘insulted’ and feel ignored by Victorian Government’s latest drought assistance (Isabella Pittaway, ABC Rural)
- One South Australian community is taking drought relief into its own hands (Samantha Jonscher, ABC North and West)
- Climate change is no excuse to do nothing on drought (Ed Gannon, The Weekly Times)
- Climate change, drugs and mental health — regional youth speak out about the big issues (Leah White, ABC Heywire)
- Can geoengineering slow climate change, or will it be used as an excuse not to cut emissions? (Eric Campbell, Foreign Correspondent)
- Demand for organic produce booms (Amelia Pepe, The Weekly Times)
- NT is finally banana freckle free (Good Fruit & Vegetables)
- Snails slowly but steadily spreading deep into cropping areas around the country (Angus Verley, ABC Rural)
- Report states genetic ban is costing SA farmers (Barossa & Light Herald)
- FAO warns food supply threatened by declining biodiversity (AFP/7 News)
- Giant cabbage that had grower eating coleslaw for weeks attracts global attention (Georgie Burgess, ABC Radio Hobart)
- Health star ratings overhaul as obesity rate soars (Lanai Scarr, The Daily Telegraph)
- The healthiest way to cook every type of vegetable, according to a dietitian (Melissa Meier, My Body + Soul)
- Remote outback town Innamincka to get telehealth clinic (Casey Briggs, ABC News)
- No backyard, no problem. You can still recycle your food waste (Genelle Weule, ABC Science)
- End of Woolies $1 milk coincides — to the day — with closure of Queensland town’s last dairy farm (Nicole Hegarty and David Dowsett, ABC Wide Bay)
International news:
- Europe: Brexit could be delayed until 2021, EU sources reveal (Daniel Boffey, Lisa O’Carroll and Heather Stewart, The Guardian)
- USA: WCS sixth-graders design, build greenhouse for raising vegetables (Thom Randall, The Sun)
- USA: How do big farmers hope to pick the next crop? Carefully — but with robots (The Washington Post)
- The Netherlands: Packing robot processes 4,000 cucumbers per hour (HortiDaily)
This post appeared in the AUSVEG Weekly Update published 26 February 2019. Subscribe to the Update using our online form to receive the latest industry news in your inbox every week!