Record-breaking flooding as a result of ex-Cyclone Jasper in north Queensland has cut off critical food supply routes, left communities stranded and disrupted the mango harvest.
The Palmerston Highway, a vital produce route from inland growing regions to east-coast markets, suffered catastrophic damage from the deluge. It’s the only road to the coast accessible by B-doubles – large trucks that can carry two shipping container’s worth of goods – but major splits and cracks meant the 200 B-doubles that traverse the route each week will not be able to drive along it “for months”.
The Queensland Trucking Association’s chief executive, Gary Mahon, said the road had been damaged to the point that parts of it were “fundamentally not even there any more”.
In the meantime, he said, it would take twice as many smaller trucks using alternative routes to get produce to market, increasingly transport costs significantly.
“For banana and mango growers getting their produce off in the area, costs will escalate significantly,” Mahon said. “Our appeal for the government will be to put the highest priority on restoring that road.”
In better news, the freight routes along the coast to Cairns would be “restored relatively quickly” once the rain stopped and the water subsided, Mahon said.
Michael Guerin, the chief executive of the peak farming body Agforce, said the extent of damage would become clear in a few days. He said it was unlikely the floods would lead to a significant increase in fresh food prices in the lead-up to Christmas.
“The majority of mangoes are grown out of the Northern Territory,” Guerin said. “The weather event has been contained to that patch of north-east Queensland so there won’t be a huge impact on prices.”
Locally, however, communities and farmers had been heavily affected, he said.
“We are very reliant on roads and supply chains in Cairns,” he said. “If you can’t get the produce out for processing and you can’t get it back for supply, then very quickly supermarkets are going to start running short.”
Sixty kilometres south of Cairns, a cane farmer and grazier, Alex Stubbs, said he had lost an estimated one-third of his crop after part of his property flooded. He thinks that loss will be reflected across the region, which will “impact the millers, then employment and cashflows into regional communities”.
“For the mango industry, the ability to be able to get in and harvest and keep supply will be nearly impossible at this stage,” he said.
The chief executive of the Australia Mango Industry Association, Brett Kelly, said flooding had “severely” affected growers, and that the industry group was monitoring the situation closely.
A spokesperson from Queensland Transport and Main Roads said most public roads in the far north were closed on Monday due to flooding and landslides.
“We are continuing to assess conditions and provide emergency access, where possible,” the spokesperson said.
