General Manager of communications at the industry body AUSVEG, Lucy Gregg, said growers would eventually need to increase their prices to wholesalers, and those rises would flow onto consumers.<\/p>\n
“We’re hearing that of the input cost increases, they’ve only been able to pass on about 12 per cent,” she said.<\/p>\n
“So at the moment growers are carrying the other 88 per cent of costs and that’s just simply not sustainable.”<\/p>\n
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Rising input costs are making it harder for growers to make a profit at the farm gate. (Pexels:<\/a> Michael Burrows<\/a>)<\/p>\n Vegetable wholesaler Bill Bolsano said the growers who supplied his business at the Sydney Markets were asking for more money.<\/p>\n “We’re paying an extra 5 to 10 per cent, so prices will be going up to cover that,” he said. Prices for vegetables at the retail level are expected to increase. (ABC New England: James Paras)<\/p>\n Australia is largely self-sufficient in fresh vegetables, with growers producing 10,000 tonnes each day.<\/p>\n But that could change if growers decide not to plant any more crops until the crisis has passed.<\/p>\n “It’s supply and demand, so we’ll have to see how that pans out but if these price rises keep going then growers will make a decision if they plant more product,” Ms Gregg said.<\/p>\n “Certainly their future plans and what they might be doing in relation to planting and harvesting is front of mind at the moment.”<\/p>\n Of the 150 growers surveyed, about 40 said they had already reduced planting by an average of 30 per cent.<\/p>\n About one in five had decided not to harvest existing crops because rising costs had made it unviable or they could not get produce to markets.<\/p>\n Ms Gregg said the situation raised questions about the long-term viability of many growers.<\/p>\n “We have been reporting for several years now that the vegetable industry has struggled to have good margins and make a profit.”<\/p>\n Some growers may consider not even planting crops if input costs continue to rise. (ABC news: Simon Cullen)<\/p>\n AUSVEG chief executive Michael Coote said government action was needed.<\/p>\n “Unless government can commit and assure growers they will be prioritised for supply of diesel, fertiliser and freight, more will review their production schedules and supply will drop further,” he said.<\/p>\n Consumers urged not to panic<\/p>\n The NSW Farmers Association said the impact on food prices would be limited for now.<\/p>\n Economist for the association, Sam Miller, said many growers had contracts with the major supermarkets, so prices should remain stable for a while.<\/p>\n He said consumers could also switch to cheaper vegetables if prices were to rise.<\/p>\n “So if the cost of spinach goes up by a lot, then consumers might be tempted to buy more potatoes or mushrooms,” he said.<\/p>\n Mr Miller said that since 2020, the price for a basket of vegetables had increased by about 25 per cent.<\/p>\n He said there was potential for a significant increase if the crisis in the Middle East dragged on.<\/p>\n “If we see really prolonged interruptions in fertiliser or diesel supply, then certainly we’re going to see some real upward price pressure flowing from the farm gate to the retail level.”Loading…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The war in the Middle East is already taking a toll on Australian vegetable growers and wholesalers, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,278476,99,30164,23642,278478,258948,278477],"class_list":["post-565932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ausveg","tag-business","tag-consumers","tag-cost-of-living-crisis","tag-fruit-and-veg","tag-middle-east-conflict","tag-vegetable-production"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/81f42079b78d1be3279e97248b0b2972.jpeg\")
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