26 responses |
Laisla starts with ... Just wondering if anyone has any experience importing a new fruit tree/plant variety..or knows anything about the process. From what I saw on the Gov. wen, it takes months. The plants are quarantined and have various tests done - ach one cost between $75 - $150 each. On top of that, you pay a daily maintenance rate of $4 per day. I think the high price might be counter productive and encourage people to import things illegally. Any experience? Thx | About the Author laislaa Sydney 14th December 2012 7:38am #UserID: 7341 Posts: 57 View All laislaa's Edible Fruit Trees |
Mike says... Laisla if only it was that easy.Not much makes if through the methyl bromide baths and other treatments.Private only quarantine facilities also makes it dicey.It could over $1000 per tree after phytosanitry dcertificates and the like and the trees could be casualties of the process. While we are a fruit backwater in many senses especially in terms of tropical varieties some seeds can make it over the green curtain.This door is also snapping shut with all the tougher conditions that are being imposed.It is frustrating as the disease and pest risks should be primary considerations.The state govt are still the primary johnny appleseeds of genuine weeds like leucaena and buffell grass in QLD. | About the Author Cairns 14th December 2012 9:22am #UserID: 5418 Posts: 1438 View All 's Edible Fruit Trees |
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BJ says... Time in quarantine also depends on the family/species with those related to commercial crops being locked up for longer periods. I think some are monitored for 2 years? I have heard figures around $2000 and than there is the risk of the plants not surviving. Many big nurseries and some big collectors have their own facilities on-site so they dont have to rely on govt department mistreating the trees while in quarantine. In many ways, you can see why our tropical fruit holdings here are trapped in the 80s. | About the Author Theposterformerlyknownas Brisbane 14th December 2012 9:42am #UserID: 3270 Posts: 1552 View All Theposterformerlyknownas's Edible Fruit Trees |
Mike says... I suspect people are being driven to considering the very fringes of what is legal due to our harsh and uncompromising import process as it applies to the 'common folk'.The 'wall' was constructed in the 80's but is continually made higher and thicker.Bans of import of entire groups oddly happens after a disease get out in Australia and it is too late. | About the Author Cairns 14th December 2012 10:53am #UserID: 5418 Posts: 1438 View All 's Edible Fruit Trees |
| About the Author MaryT Sydney 14th December 2012 11:16am #UserID: 5412 Posts: 2066 View All MaryT's Edible Fruit Trees |
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| About the Author laislaa Sydney 14th December 2012 11:34am #UserID: 7341 Posts: 57 View All laislaa's Edible Fruit Trees |
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Jantina says... Too right MaryT, not only not serious but totally clueless, not only about food security but also about GM foods and the amount of toxic chemicals allowed and encouraged. And Mike is right too about the government spreading real weeds with impunity while blocking food biodiversity. So it's up to us to do exactly like we do on this forum, share and encourage knowledge to grow your own,share plant material and help each other track down potentially tasty, productive food plants. Three cheers for Daleys for making such practical forum available to us all. | About the Author Jantina Mt Gambier 14th December 2012 11:39am #UserID: 1351 Posts: 1272 View All Jantina's Edible Fruit Trees |
Mike says... The concept of food security seems to be out the window these days with state and fed govts who are focussing on the monocultures.Jantina diversity is increasing at the local level through folks like yourself sharing but it is not improving nationwide and in regions.Support for diversity,research into a wide variety of useful plants and education seem to be very yesterday concepts for the government. I think a good deal of produce and plant import banning stems from protecting local industry.Than goodness other countries don't ban our produce for doing this and not being open. | About the Author Cairns 14th December 2012 11:53am #UserID: 5418 Posts: 1438 View All 's Edible Fruit Trees |
| About the Author John Gingin 14th December 2012 12:19pm #UserID: 1758 Posts: 99 View All John's Edible Fruit Trees |
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| About the Author ivepeters brisbane 14th December 2012 1:41pm #UserID: 6741 Posts: 527 View All ivepeters's Edible Fruit Trees |
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Jantina says... Mike, there's no logic to their import banning systems as far as protecting local industry goes too. Allowing apples in from places where there is Fireblight (but no you cannot bring in a new variety) allowing flowers, fruit and vegetables from China and other places but seizing and destroying seed that has fanastic food potential. Not to mention ignorant officers who know nothing about plants. There are forces at work here that have a lot more to do with who pays who and who knows who and who scores a political advantage over who than any logical reasoning. Pardon my cynical thoughts. | About the Author Jantina Mt Gambier 16th December 2012 8:41am #UserID: 1351 Posts: 1272 View All Jantina's Edible Fruit Trees |
| About the Author lenn 16th December 2012 9:02am #UserID: 7412 Posts: 36 View All lenn's Edible Fruit Trees |
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Mike says... Jantina I don't think there is a conspiracy just a collision of inconsistency,bungling and bad policy.Staff also flout their own procedures as I found out when a couple of Einteins in Sydney seized my permitted species on a whim and destroyed them with a bullet forgetting about the 30 day appeal period.Sydney and Melbourne inspections will be different with parcels and even the same species can pass at one and not the other. Untreated Annonas and magifera that were not dehusked of mine were recently 'pocketed' in Melbourne. | About the Author Cairns 16th December 2012 9:19am #UserID: 5418 Posts: 1438 View All 's Edible Fruit Trees |
Jantina says... I did not mean there was a conspiracy as such, payoffs don't have to be in cash and politics don't have to be in parliment. What you say above is true, having experienced the same scenarios myself. Also a couple of years ago I got sent some very special perennial beans by someone who did not know they were not permitted. They were seized and some flower seeds with them allowed through. Aqis obviously not knowing that the person had told me that they had sent the beans included a letter saying that they had removed some seeds and while they normally sent seized seeds back to the sender where possible in this case the seeds had been deemed too dangerous to send back ! Beans ? too dangerous ? read they are now growing in someone else's backyard. Anyway I'll stop ranting now before there are complaints about me! | About the Author Jantina Mt Gambier 17th December 2012 8:03am #UserID: 1351 Posts: 1272 View All Jantina's Edible Fruit Trees |
| About the Author laislaa Sydney 17th December 2012 10:33pm #UserID: 7341 Posts: 57 View All laislaa's Edible Fruit Trees |
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| About the Author Rowan Casterton 18th December 2012 5:48am #UserID: 4558 Posts: 97 View All Rowan's Edible Fruit Trees |
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Jantina says... No Rowan, apologies for my tardiness in answering, you may kick my backside next time you see me, will you be around tomorrow ? if I don't answer an email immediately it(and sometimes that's not possible) gets deluged under all the following ones and not much happens. I was however delighted to hear you have had success with the Bayberry, it made my day. That makes 3 that I know of who have had success. Laisla, their aim is to intercept all seeds and plants and to that end they have sniffer dogs and xray machines but as Rowan says it is hit and miss. | About the Author Jantina Mt Gambier 18th December 2012 8:33am #UserID: 1351 Posts: 1272 View All Jantina's Edible Fruit Trees |
| About the Author laislaa Sydney 18th December 2012 8:47am #UserID: 7341 Posts: 57 View All laislaa's Edible Fruit Trees |
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Laisla says... For all their quarantine restrictions, there are not many weeds or diseases that haven't made their way ashore here - so something is obviously not working. Additionally, the worst foreign species invasions have been due to the government - Indian Myna Bird, Cane Toad, Prickly Pear, those grasses in the NT ect. | About the Author laislaa Sydney 18th December 2012 8:49am #UserID: 7341 Posts: 57 View All laislaa's Edible Fruit Trees |
Mike says... It becomes self-defeating if conditions of permitted seed import become unrealistic or there are seizures on whims when you do comply.I wonder how many people have actually successfully imported annon seeds with a phosphite treatment certificate.The risk assessments have been far less sophisticated and conditions less logical than common sense would demand.The number of new pests and diseases is perhaps due to rstrictions that are overkill forcing people to flout them. Exemptions for the priviledged or methods on entry that are not scrutinised also. Banning Myrtaceae after rust is entrenched here is par for the course.Authorities spreading weeds officially as pasture species means we didn't learn anything fron cane toads. | About the Author 18th December 2012 9:02am #UserID: 5418 Posts: 1438 View All 's Edible Fruit Trees |
Laisla says... I agree Mike. People are creative and will find a way no matter what; the overregulation simply encourages people to take a risk. I can recall something to that effect. Recently, Black Sigatoka virus was found in banana plantations around Darwin. This sigatoka is far more potent and threatening to the banana industry than the yellow sigatoka kind. There's no way that virus just 'appeared'', it is spread from affected plant material (which we are surrounded by in South-East Asia). Obviously, someone brought something in illegally. I saw a variety of bananas for sale at the Sydney Markets that I had only ever seen before in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (in fact, it is believed to be an African variant on the plantain and is usually associated with that country). I wanted a plant,and the grower wouldn't deal with me, so I called Nambour, the cloning nurseries, the banana-geoplasm bank in Marochydoore. None of them had the plant recorded in their chromosome banks. It wasn't recorded on any AQIS records either. Any banana currently in Australia (or imported) is kept in a bank there. No-one had it, so we can safely assume that someone just bought the plant over without going through quarantine. | About the Author laislaa Sydney 18th December 2012 9:23am #UserID: 7341 Posts: 57 View All laislaa's Edible Fruit Trees |
| About the Author Rowan Casterton 18th December 2012 10:25am #UserID: 4558 Posts: 97 View All Rowan's Edible Fruit Trees |
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| About the Author Cairns 18th December 2012 9:00pm #UserID: 5418 Posts: 1438 View All 's Edible Fruit Trees |
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| About the Author Jantina Mt Gambier 18th December 2012 11:41pm #UserID: 1351 Posts: 1272 View All Jantina's Edible Fruit Trees |
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Mike says... Jantina I have a few stories of my own and while I think the procedures are clumsy and not outcome focussed that is not the biggest problem.I find the 'freelancing' and unpredictability of the system infuriating.Throw AQIS ICON and the quarantine act out the window when dealing with them and also conditions of import.c7100 doesn't mean much to some officers who have creative interpretations. | About the Author 5418 19th December 2012 1:28pm #UserID: 5418 Posts: 1438 View All 's Edible Fruit Trees |
rowan says... I find that it is so frustrating to try and import seeds of species that are not on the list. They just don't want to work with the 'small guys' and just put it in the too hard basket instead of doing some research so they can add it to the list so that we can at least see whether we can or can't bring them in. | About the Author Rowan Casterton 19th December 2012 2:54pm #UserID: 4558 Posts: 97 View All Rowan's Edible Fruit Trees |
Mike says... I think about my experiences after getting formal advice,having documentation in hand and doing the right thing when bringing permitted seeds in.Sydney was worst and I realise the border security shows are not a reflection of reality.Perhaps the highest level of professionalism and integrity is reserved for officers looking for drugs and other contraband like weapons.Seeds might just be seized out of habit and procedures like the 30 day appeal period overlooked with some officers. | About the Author Cairns 20th December 2012 8:45pm #UserID: 5418 Posts: 1438 View All 's Edible Fruit Trees |