Australian farmers, along with retailers and consumers, have felt the pinch of rising vegetable costs as months of continual flooding and rainfall delays crop growth.
“[F]uel, fertiliser, energy, gas, all of those things are going up, causing price spikes and retailers are the same—there’s no one really winning in this situation.”
Vegetable price increases have been driven by fertiliser shortages due to supply chain issues in China, labour shortages, and the floods across Australia’s east coast. Additionally, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has driven up the global supply of oil and wheat.
“There’s nothing we can do to make it happen faster, it’s just a case of needing the rain to stop, ground to dry, have enough dry time to actually prepare the beds and then plant and let the plants establish themselves,” Cath Fiefia said.
“Having been through it before but not to this extent, we’ve learned that reselling a lot of our produce with whatever we can at the farmers’ markets is keeping us afloat and without that income, we’d have nothing.”
“The really concerning thing about this is that we’ve got these high-pressure systems coming through as we head into winter, and we’re going to see really low temperatures,” he said.