NSW floods crisis: Farmers, buffeted by repeat floods, consider cutting back

Matt Vella and his brother John, who lost all their crops in their fourth flood of the year, are among a growing group of farmers considering scaling back their operations.

‘Total wipe-out – the farm’s gone under completely,’ says Matt Vella in his drenched fields of Chinese cabbage at Camden southwest of Sydney. Picture: Jane Dempster

Lettuce farmers Matt Vella and his brother John, whose produce consumers see at Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and McDonald’s, are considering scaling back their operations to reduce risk on the back of their fourth flood since the start of the year.

It is a choice increasing numbers of farmers are considering, says NSW Farmers Association chief Pete Arkle.

Vella Produce is located in Camden, one of the centres of flooding in NSW. Mr Vella says “hundreds of thousands” of dollars of lettuce was underwater during the past couple of days.

“Total wipe-out – the farm’s gone under completely,” he said.

The floodwater has been receding since Sunday’s high and the ground is caked in mud that is starting to develop a rotting stench. Foxes occasionally run by – animals as well as people have been displaced by flooding in the past few days.

Walking around his farm, Mr Vella points out a blue barrel at the top of the paddock.

“That’s where the water was up to on Sunday,” he said.

Floodwaters in Camden reached record highs at the weekend, topping a record set just three months earlier in April.

Many in Camden, including Mr Vella, are fatigued by the repetition. “It is demoralising – punishing – at the moment,” he said.

Mr Vella said the repeated flooding had made him consider scaling back the size of operations.

“We’re just weighing up the risk of further flooding … so we’re thinking of maybe reducing by half or dropping a couple of lines, maybe just growing baby cos and gems.”

Mr Arkle said reducing crops was a possibility farmers across the state were considering in light of regular flooding as well as a tight labour market. “We’re hearing more and more of those kinds of stories – of farmers choosing to scale back in the knowledge that they won’t be able to get labour,” he said.

Mr Vella said his crops were likely unsalvageable despite some not looking far out of the ordinary.

“It was under for 2½ days. We’re concerned about contamination … we don’t know what’s in the floodwater. They’re filthy – getting lettuces clean when they’ve been underwater is very difficult.”

The price of vegetables in Sydney has risen 14.1 per cent in the past year, significantly above the 5.1 per cent of overall year-on-year inflation, according to the Bureau of Statistics.

Mr Vella said he thought the impact of the flooding on food production would be widespread. “We’re a small percentage of the whole industry, but the whole east coast has been hammered.”