02 March 2022
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Growers need to be paid more to counteract rising costs, says industry group
AUSTRALIAN vegetable industry group AUSVEG has been calling for an increase in prices paid to potato growers.
Prices have remained stable over the past two years, despite steep increases in farm input costs for Australian growers and data from Harvest to Home has indicated that retail prices have remained at pre-pandemic levels while on-farm running costs have increased. Growers have faced increases of more than 40% in fertiliser, chemical and fuel costs and 20% increases in wages and transport costs.
Vegetable prices have seen the lowest percentage increase in price across all the agricultural commodities, at an average of just 7.5% which is well below the average percentage of agriculture commodities of about 59.2%, and the average increase in input costs of 110.3%.
