By Aaron Cordy
AFTER calling out supermarkets last week for price gouging costing the farmers their livelihood, Natural Earth Produce of Toolamba mulched the 40 acres of prime zucchini crop over the weekend.
The dejected owner of Natural Earth Produce, Ross Marsolino, watched on as the tractor ran up and down the rows of Zucchini he couldn’t afford to pick. While the pickers who should have been out amongst the vines are all off trying to find work somewhere else.
While the supermarkets continue to hold prices at higher rates, families right across the country continue to go hungry, it was devastating to see an abundance of food being turned into inedible pulp. Families struggle daily to feed their children, but for the mighty dollar these billion-dollar companies reduce farmers to this.
At the local supermarket staff members claim it is the cost of fuel that is keeping the prices so high on the shop floor. This doesn’t change the fact the stock was sitting in cold storage ready to the fill market demand and the consortium held the price up, creating this trickledown effect which ultimately led to mulching food that should have been eaten.
“I’ve been here since 2015, but every year it’s getting f***ing harder and harder because we can’t get our margin right, and they [supermarkets] don’t work on a consistent basis. If they worked on a consistent basis we wouldn’t have this problem,” said Ross.
