A new tomato testing regime has begun in South Australia to allow growers to sell their product into Western Australia. Queensland and Western Australia had both banned South Australian tomatoes after the discovery of a highly contagious virus on three farms north of Adelaide. But for those producers impacted, the future remains uncertain with the state government offering no clear path back to production and hundreds of workers left in limbo.
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00:00For Virginia tomato grower Hoon Vo and his employees, it's been a difficult two months.
00:08I employ about 30 people, so when it happened I was quite nervous.
00:13The discovery of the tomato brown rugus fruit virus in South Australia in August
00:18put the industry in SA under serious threat.
00:21Three farms where the disease was found were shut down, resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs.
00:27SA tomatoes were also banned from being sold in Western Australia and Queensland.
00:33In response, the state government has demanded the infected crops be destroyed to prevent the virus spreading.
00:39So while we still have only three properties that have been infected with this disease, eradication remains a very possible path.
00:48As part of that strategy, plants from South Australia are being tested for the virus,
00:53a process usually done interstate until now.
00:57We would hope to be able to turn those samples around in a matter of days rather than a matter of weeks,
01:01which we have seen interstate.
01:03Fortunately that then coincides with when the produce growing season is about to ramp up.
01:09It's expected local testing will allow tomato sales to resume to WA.
01:14That's welcome news to Hoon Vo, who is still hoping to send much of his crop to the West.
01:19So we're pretty much harvesting next week. This has come at a perfect time.
01:24For the tomato farms impacted by the virus, the future is much less clear.
01:29The South Australian government couldn't say exactly when they could start growing and selling their produce.
01:36We're still shut down. We're still losing tens of millions of dollars
01:40with no clear direction as to how we can get back into business.
01:44As one of the three farms shut down, Perfection Fresh has already shed 300 staff
01:50and says up to 200 more could go.
01:53Some of those people have been with us for a long time, but if we can't get back into business, we may never get back.
01:58The dire situation with harvest just around the corner.