TWO years ago, Port Stephens oyster farmers found themselves "running around in circles" to meet huge demand for their wares ahead of Christmas, with their seafood specialties billed as better than normal.
Fortunes change quickly for primary producers. Less than three years later, the industry is fighting to stay afloat after a horror stretch involving heavy rain, a pandemic and a fresh virus that some fear could wipe out the industry completely.
It is no cottage industry. There are 41 farmers in the region, where oyster farming traces its origins back generations.
XL Oysters managing director Matt Burgoyne put the stakes before them succinctly.
"Unfortunately if the government doesn't step in and help us, the industry will collapse in Port Stephens," said Mr Burgoyne, who is also NSW Farmers Port Stephens oyster branch chairman.
"Farmers have already had to let people go. They're having to find off-farm work because everything is dead."
The state government says that help is on offer for the farmers, but Port Stephens MP Kate Washington argues it is too little being delivered too slowly in the face of an existential threat.
With the past fortnight revealing the insidious QX disease rife through Port Stephens, growers are calling for a shift in species. Abandoning Sydney rock oysters for Pacific oysters would have them back on their feet in two years, some say.
Two years is a long time for any business to forego its cash crop. While the disease poses no risk for diners, it is propagating an ongoing yield that poses the problem for farmers. Having already lost crops, the Port Stephens oyster farmers need up to $5 million in support from the NSW government to buy the stock to help them survive.
Of course, government money is finite. But $5 million seems a cheap price to pay to keep an industry of such a pedigree standing in the wake of a perfect storm.
Many setbacks to the industry have been documented over the years, all overcome to some degree. It would be a tragedy for any other outcome at this stage for traders who have weathered COVID-19 and more in recent years. NSW Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders notes introducing the new species on a commercial scale is difficult, but it is likely far easier than explaining why a historic industry has evaporated.
