Coffs Coast banana growers are copping a double blow, with starving flying foxes shredding their crops while Coles refuses to back down on dropping local bananas from its shelves.
The bats have already left tens of thousands of bananas unfit for sale, and berry farms are being hit too.
Coffs Harbour banana grower Paul Shoker estimated the bats had damaged more than 10,000 bananas on his farm in October alone.
The raids come amid a suspected mass starvation event, thought to be caused by a lack of nectar on flowering trees.
“They seek the pollen and the nectar from the banana flower tips … and in the process of getting that nectar they scratch the entire bunch of bananas,” Mr Shoker told ABC Coffs Coast.
“As we go to harvest that bunch in a couple of months’ time, it’ll be covered fully in scratches, and then it’s no longer marketable and basically we’d have to chop it down.”
At Bonville, ladyfinger banana grower Mick Gentle put protective bags over his banana blossoms. The bats simply crawled underneath to reach the flowers.
He said in 36 years on the farm, he had never seen behaviour or damage like it.
“The bats are actually entering and staying in the banana plantation during the day … which is something that I’ve … never seen before,” Mr Gentle told ABC Coffs Coast.
“The scratches and the damage on the fruit is incredible. It’s far beyond what I’ve ever seen before.”
Raspberry and blackberry growers on the Coffs Coast have also been hit, with bats flying into the protective tunnels over their crops.
“Not only are [growers] losing their crops, but often these bats are in a very weak and fragile state,” Berries Australia chief executive Rachel Mackenzie told ABC Coffs Coast.
“Some of them are even dying in the nets, and that creates really significant workplace health and safety issues for growers.”
The bats generally cannot be handled because of the risk of deadly lyssavirus, and Ms Mackenzie said growers needed help.
“I don’t think it should be the responsibility of volunteers to have to deal with this, but obviously our members and growers can’t deal with this,” she told ABC Coffs Coast.
“There needs to be a little bit more recognition by the state government [about] the fact that this is an unusual event.”
“There needs to be some more support in terms of managing this… mostly in terms of just safe removal of the flying foxes.”
Growers have been advised to put netting across the ends of tunnels to keep bats out. But Ms Mackenzie said that was another cost for farmers already losing crops.
A spokesperson for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment said it understood the challenges growers faced when flying foxes hit commercial crops.
“Effective methods … include exclusion netting, which provides a physical barrier over crops and also delivers additional benefits by protecting crops from hail, wind and sun damage as well as protection from birds,” the spokesperson told ABC Coffs Coast.
“Other crop protection options include fruit bags, sound deterrents and lighting systems.”
Despite the damage, shoppers should still find bananas and berries on the shelves.
“When you look at banana production nationally … about 94 per cent of bananas come out of northern Queensland,” Freshmark chief executive Meegan George told ABC Coffs Coast.
“What I would say to the average Aussie is that bananas overall from a supply perspective, and this is definitely what I’m seeing on the market floor, haven’t really been impacted.”
“However we do recognise that locally there may be some challenges in actually accessing that supply.”
The bats are not the only headache for Coffs Harbour banana growers.
Coles has refused to budge on its decision to stop stocking Coffs Harbour bananas, cucumbers, and pumpkins from supplier Golden Dawn, despite a petition with close to 40,000 signatures calling on the supermarket giant to reverse it.
Coffs Harbour MP Gurmesh Singh took delivery of the petition at Brelsford Park.
“Coles should reverse this appalling decision,” Mr Singh wrote on social media, in a post shared with Coffs Harbour Mayor Nikki Williams.
“This morning, we heard from local farmers whose hearts are breaking, but they can be reassured their local community stands with them.”
“There’s a huge power imbalance there, everyone recognises that,” Mr Singh told 7News.
“So we’re just asking Coles to do the right thing by our local community and by these local farmers.”
Dressed in yellow, farmers and their families have turned out to fight for their livelihoods.
“Planting Cavendish bananas is not something that I can possibly do until you know the full effect of what the pricing is going to be into the future, which will take a year or two to play out,” one community spokesperson told 7News.
“Could be up to 600 cartons a week that may not be sold, so that’s 600 times 13 kilos or 15 kilos.”
Another community spokesperson said bananas from North Queensland would now travel to Sydney and back up to Coffs Harbour before landing in local stores.
“I’ve watched my stepson and his wife establish a farm,” the spokesperson told 7News.
“I’ve watched them plant bananas that they believe will be going into Coles stores, only to find that last October that they’ve been shut out.”
“For whatever reason, whether it’s for cost etc, there is always a human behind that and that human is a Coffs Harbour family,” Mayor Williams told 7News.
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