THE Member for Northern Victoria, Wendy Lovell, has called out what she perceives as the State Government’s failure to develop a funding program to help horticulturalists to install tree netting, despite being provided funding from the Federal Government to do so.
Speaking during the first Victorian parliamentary sitting week for 2021, Ms Lovell sought an explanation from the Agriculture Minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, as to why the funding had not been made available to growers.
In November 2019, the Federal Government announced funding of $4M to Victoria to implement a horticultural netting grant program to protect crops from weather and pests. According to the Victorian Department of Agriculture, they were approached by the Government to implement the program in mid-2020.
The scheme is a dollar-for-dollar arrangement with a maximum of $300,000 for each individual recipient.
Ms Lovell compared the Victorian rollout to that in South Australia, where 80 percent of funding to SA growers has already been distributed.
Grower services manager at industry body Fruit Growers Victoria, Michael Crisera, said the rollout of the grants had been slow, but admitted that it wasn’t a priority for orchardists right now – nor the most pressing issue – who are in the peak period of harvesting fruit despite labour shortages.
He said he hoped the grants could be sorted over the next two months to have next season’s crop covered.
According to the Department of Agriculture, the program will be implemented at a time that does not conflict with harvest activities.
