North Queensland banana grower and wholesaler, Pat Arcella, is optimistic about the future of the Queensland banana industry despite the threat of banana imports from the Philippines continuing to loom over the domestic industry.
While Mr Arcella (pictured at the South Johnstone River which runs along his South Johnstone plantation) agrees that while Philippines bananas could decimate the local industry due to multiple disease threats, he strongly believes the superior quality of Australian bananas and Australian growers being world leaders in best management practices, would see the domestic industry prevail.
"This Philippines import threat will come around every year for the next 10 years or so, because that's how far away I think Philippines growers are from getting their act together and complying with the protocols they need to in order to bring their bananas into Australia," Mr Arcella said.
"I'm not really that concerned yet.
"On scientific grounds, Philippines bananas shouldn't be coming in because there are too many diseases that would destroy our industry.
"And why would you want to bring something into our country that would destroy one of the best industries in Australia - the banana industry here is an icon and I just can't fathom how the Government is thinking.
"I've just come back from overseas and everywhere I went I tried the bananas, and you can't beat Aussie bananas. It's a beautiful sweet fruit, and it's fresh, only a few days off the tree when consumers buy it, so why would you want to eat an imported banana that's 40 days old?
"We do produce a good banana, and if we were charging $10 or $12 per kg, week in, week out, then yes, that would be dear.
"But what's wrong with buying bananas for an average of $3 per kg all year round, which is what Australian consumers are doing at the moment." The 58-year-old dynamo has been growing bananas for 11 years and wholesaling bananas for 34 years, and is the managing director of ABC (Arcella Banana Company) Bananas and president of the Banana Wholesalers Association.
ABC Bananas has a 140 hectare plantation at Tully, and also bought a 250ha plantation at South Johnstone in 2007.
Indeed Mr Arcella is so optimistic about the future of the industry that he's also in the process of building a state-of-the-art packhouse at South Johnstone. ABC Bananas also owns the Tropicana brand, which is a premium banana carton, packed to set specifications, using bananas from its own farms and a number of other growers.
Mr Arcella said the Tropicana group produced around 26,000 tonnes of bananas per year, and was now back in full production in the wake of Cyclone Larry.
"We're back on track and we can handle 400,000 cartons a week and that will be good for the consumer because they'll be a reasonable price and there's not so much production that we can't get a reasonable return on our investments."
When Cyclone Larry devastated the North Queensland banana industry after it crossed the coast near Innisfail on the morning of March 20, 2006, all of Mr Arcella's banana trees were wiped out.
"I was no different to other growers around Tully, we were all in the same boat, but we got in and cleaned up, and eight months later, in the Australian spirit, we were back on track again.
"It's not the first time we've had to contend with a cyclone.
"But Cyclone Larry was bad ? in 34 years, I've never seen anything that bad, and hopefully we won't get another one like that for 100 years."
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