Gawler River Tomatoes owner Harry Kapiris says tomato brown rugose fruit virus test was wrong

Tomato farmer Harry Kapiris says the results of a virus test that shut down his farm and cost him millions was wrong, and he’s considering legal action.

A devastated tomato grower says his farm was shut down and placed into quarantine on the basis of a laboratory test he claims falsely identified the presence of a contagious new virus.

Gawler River Tomatoes owner Harry Kapiris is considering legal action against authorities in the wake of biosecurity officers issuing him with an order in August to rip up $1.1m worth of tomato plants and cease production on his Adelaide plains property.

Mr Kapiris, a second generation grower whose family has been in the industry since 1952, says he has lost millions of dollars and laid off 30 staff after results came back positive for tomato brown rugose fruit virus.

Harry Kapiris is considering legal action in the wake of biosecurity officers issuing him with an order in August to rip up $1.1m worth of tomato plants. Picture: Keryn Stevens

“The last thing I want to do is go to court … but I’ve lost X amount of dollars and someone’s got to pay … it’s not rocket science,” he said.

Gawler River Tomatoes, SA Tomato and Perfection Fresh were placed into quarantine and forced to destroy millions of dollars worth of tomatoes and plants in August.

The saga started when staff at Perfection Fresh notified the Primary Industries and Regions Department, PIRSA, results of independent testing that identified the virus, also known by the acronym of ToBRFV, on their Two Wells property.

The infected plants were purchased from high-performance tomato plant producers SA Tomato, who also supply Gawler River Tomatoes.

Mr Kapiris said before his condemned crop was sent to deep burial, an agronomist took more than 60 samples from the same greenhouse for testing which came back negative. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Mr Kapiris said before his condemned crop was sent to deep burial, an agronomist took more than 60 samples from the same greenhouse and sent them to Victoria for testing.

The results from each of those tests, conducted by Agriculture Victoria’s Crop Health Services, came back negative for ToBRFV.

“When it first happened and it was only me, Perfection Fresh and Peter (Petsios from Tomato SA), I was losing that much sleep and thinking wow, can I be that unlucky?” Mr Kapiris said.

“Is this really happening? Out of the whole nation, we’ve got three (producers infected) … that’s just bullshit.

“And then I find out that ours was a false positive … and you’re dealing with people’s livelihoods. It’s just crazy.”

Gawler River Tomatoes director of sales and marketing Steve Tsakoumakis, also a microbiologist, said he had asked in vain for PIRSA to supply him with more detailed data, analysis and graphs from the positive ToBRFV tests, carried out by the Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute in Menangle, NSW.

PIRSA director of plant and invasive species Nick Secomb backed the initial results from the Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute – one of only two labs in Australia who were accredited to do the testing when ToBRFV was first identified.

Mr Secomb said early identification of the virus meant there was a relatively low infection rate, which could explain the differing test results.

“Unless he picked leaves from the exact plants that our teams did, it is possible to get a different result,” he said.

Mr Secomb said PIRSA did not ask for in-depth results of the positive tests before placing Gawler River Tomatoes into quarantine, nor had it asked for them since.

“We don’t need them,” he said. “We’ve got the results that show the infection is there.”