Farmers in South Australia's biggest vegetable growing region are now pulling out their ruined crops, after waiting weeks for the saturated soil to dry.
Trang Xuan and her family lost most of their 70,000 tomato and bean crops when the Gawler River burst its banks at the start of the month, and swamped several hundred producers in the North Adelaide plains.
The family had just spent six months installing $500,000 worth of new infrastructure at their Buckland Park farm.
They were just starting to pick tomatoes when the flood hit, but instead of making money from the plants, they are now pulling most of them out.
"This is our first crop that was supposed to produce some return on that investment and we're not going to see anything," she said.
Neighbour, Thi Bich Loan Nguyen, is also wondering what might have been, as she and her husband cut down their cucumber plants.
The couple had high hopes of a good season with the price of cucumbers three times higher than at the same time last year.
But she said her entire crop of 50,000 plants had been destroyed, leaving her with no income for months.
Between 1,000 and 1,500 hectares of greenhouse and field crops were inundated when storms swept through the state, with the latest estimated damage bill topping $50 million.
The South Australian Government has announced it would set up a waste management program to handle the large amount of spoiled crops.
It was also offering to reimburse growers up to $10,000 for clean-up costs.
Source - http://www.freshplaza.com
