Australian banana crisis results in fruit hustlers
Afp, Sydney
Some three months after a fierce cyclone destroyed most of Australia's banana plantations, reports have emerged of thieves stealing fruit worth thousands of dollars from unaffected farms. Cyclone Larry hit northeastern Queensland state in March, wiping out 90 percent of the nation's banana crop. The storm has resulted in the price of bananas rising to as much as 15 dollars (11 US) a kilogram, an increase of some 400 percent, in a country which does not allow imports of the yellow fruit. The Australian newspaper Friday reported that several farms in northern New South Wales state had been hit by thieves. "This is the first time that anything like this has happened to us and we have been working that farm for 20 years," grower Sanita Atwal told the paper, after bananas worth 3,000 dollars were taken from her Coffs Harbour farm late last month. Atwal said she believed a fellow banana grower was responsible for the theft. "I think it would be a grower that's run short of fruit because the cold weather's coming in," she said. "They probably put our bunches in with their own pallets for sale because they know ours are worth 100 dollars a carton." Meanwhile, the Australian government said it would not allow the import of bananas from the Philippines just to relieve the current shortage. "Importing bananas could mean importing exotic pests and diseases, which would have an even more crippling, long-term effect on our banana production than Cyclone Larry," Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran said.
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