Australian Farmers, Retailers Struggle as the Price of Produce Skyrockets

An empty lettuce shelf is seen at Camp Hill Woolworths Supermarket in Brisbane, Wednesday, June 8, 2022. Australia is facing a lettuce shortage causing a lack of stock and high prices after heavy flooding across the east coast wiped out much of the lettuce crop earlier in the year. (AAP Image/Darren England)

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.

It also comes as the price of lettuce skyrockets to $12 per head, even prompting fast food chain KFC to replace the green leafy vegetable with cabbage in its wraps and burgers.

“It’s really hard for everyone on the supply chain, no-ones winning including retailers. Farmers, retailers, we have all the issues consumers are having at the moment,” Catherine Velisha, the managing director of Velisha Farms in Werribee, Victoria, told Channel Nine’s Today program on June 12.

“[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.

Hapi and Cath Fiefia, operators of the Field to Feast Farm in New South Wales, told The Daily Telegraph that keeping their farm afloat while seeing their crops innundated by rain was “tough.”

“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.”

Anthony Joseph, managing director of Alfred E. Chave at the Brisbane Markets in Queensland, said the flood in February had been detrimental to preparing for the autumn and winter crops causing a gap in supply over the past four to six weeks, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

“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.

“We’ve got ground that’s wet and cold. Crops just aren’t going to grow in these conditions.”

Joseph said that he expects the shortage of fresh produce to last for at least the next couple of months, due to combination of crops lost to the rain, and struggling plantings from the cold weather.

Meanwhile, chair of the NSW Chamber of Fresh Produce, Carlo Trimboli, told the ABC that the low supply and high demand across the industry would mean higher prices.

“No-one is really benefiting,” Trimboli said. “That’s the honest truth.”

“Prices are strong, and some [farmers are getting] potentially high prices, but their volumes are down, and there’s also a lot of farms that missed out on [a crop] totally.”

Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.