The long dry in southeast Australia and two weeks of heatwave comprise the largest single natural disaster in Australia's history.
Horticulture Australia Council CEO, Kris Newtown, has said that "it is not until you fly over those regions - and you know what was there previously that has been bulldozed out - that you can see the extent of this disaster."
Even before the catastrophic searing heat on Saturday and the devastating bushfires, the dry, hot weather was taking its toll on fruit and vegetable production through southern NSW, Victoria and South Australia.
"Grapes, including table grapes and most of the stone fruit - nectarines, peaches - will be severely impacted. It is probably too early to tell yet what impact it will have on apples and pears.
"In addition to the plant material itself being crisped, you have severe concerns about whether you are going to be able to keep your plantings alive."
The Horticulture Australia Council represents Australia's horticulture industry, which comprises about 30,000 growers employing 130,000 people, and has a farm-gate value of $8 billion.
Newton said the consequences of the long, hot dry will be felt in every Australian home.
Although prices overall fell 0.3% in the December quarter, vegetable prices rose 3.3%, while the price of fruit rose 8%.
Fruit and vegetable prices are certain to rise further in the current quarter.
Just how short the supply of fruit and vegetables will be, and just how high prices will go, will become clearer once farmers start harvesting their crops and assessing the damage.
Sydney's Flemington markets' Market Reporting Service's Chris Cope, said late last week that there was a run on stone fruit, with prices for the best late-season peaches doubling.
"The prices have gone up and the fruit is not here. They are not harvesting in Victoria. A lot of fruit has fallen on the ground and it has cooked on the trees and I would imagine people do not want to go out in over 40C and pick fruit.
"Berries, strawberries especially, raspberries and blackberries are going to be cooked," he said.
The price of lettuce, cucumber and soft leafy vegetables and herbs all jumped last week, and Cope expects the price of tomatoes to rise this week.
"A lot grow them under cover, in shade houses and glasshouses. The temperatures in those glasshouses - if you get 40C (or) 45C outside - are much more than that. I have heard stories of up to 70C inside glasshouses and everything (inside) just melting," he said.
At the other end of the country, floods have blocked highways in Queensland with the result that supplies of bananas have been unable to get through.
In March 2006, when Cyclone Larry trashed 95% of the banana crop, the wholesale cost of an 8kg box of bananas hit $155.
By Friday last week the price of bananas had doubled to $46 a box.
"We do not know what the market is going to do on Monday," Cope said. "All bets are off. It could go to $50 or more in the next week or two."
Ausveg chairman, John Brent, farms in southeast Queensland, an area that has enjoyed a mild summer.
"Weather conditions have always impacted on prices," he said. "There are still production areas throughout Australia that will be able to help bridge the gap."
But he acknowledges that quality will be affected. And he points out that moving produce around the country will incur higher transport costs.
"It is certainly going to be a challenging first half of the year for vegetable growers," Brent said.
Along the Murray River, the engine room of the Australian wine industry, several years of reduced water allocations, topped by the heatwave, are estimated to have reduced winegrape tonnage by about 30%.
Murray Valley Winegrowers CEO, Mike Stone, is based in Mildura, which has endured a record 12 consecutive days of temperatures over 40C.
Stone said growers will not really know what they have lost until they harvest their grapes.
He expects Victorian growers, who are on 35% of water allocations, to be harder hit than NSW growers, who this year have 95%.
South Australian Murray River farmers are on 18% water allocation. Stone said the past couple of years of low water allocations, high water prices and low prices for grapes have led to a significant reduction in grape tonnage in his area, and about 200 winegrape growers have left.
He said the conditions of the past month will be the end for many growers this season.
The terrible irony is that this season began with winemakers warning of 20% overproduction. Newton said the current weather conditions - the hot, dry southeast and cool wet north - are exactly what the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology forecast under climate change predictions.
"They said that the north would get cooler and much wetter and the south would get hotter and drier, and that is exactly what is happening."
She said production of grapes and citrus was reduced in South Australia's Riverland after the past year's low water allocations. She fears that effect will move upriver to Mildura, affecting large-scale vegetable growing such as potatoes, carrots and onions.
Newton also worries about ABARE forecasts that large areas of Australia's better agricultural country will go under trees, planted as carbon sinks.
She argued that it is time Australia looked seriously at food policy.
Victorian Farmers Federation horticulture chairman, Peter Cochrane, is reluctant to talk about vegetable losses when so many have perished in the bushfires.
"Losing crops being burnt pales into insignificance," he said. But he acknowledged that the loss of vegetables to the heat will be felt over the coming weeks and months. He, too, worries about food security.
"I was talking to a blueberry grower from Yarra Junction. He was quite concerned that on top of all this, we will have to try to compete with countries that have cheap labour and cheap input costs."
Cochrane worries about the impact on productive agriculture of the Government's buying back water.
"How can you compete against the Government in an open water market? Once you lose the water, the land is useless."
And he said governments have been cutting back on agricultural research budgets and closing research stations.
"My concern is that if we continue to see a loss of farmers or farming area and we start relying on imported food, it is a very dangerous situation to be in," Cochrane said.
Newton warns that the era of "ultra-cheap, ultra-high-quality fruit and vegetables" could be over.
"If margins are reduced below sustainable levels for (growers), which in many cases is what is happening now, someone is going to pay - whether it is in lack of fresh fruit and vegetables, lack of the quality we are used to, or higher prices."
-- The Australian
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