AGRICULTURE Minister Peter Walsh has slammed the Yarra Ranges Council over ‘stupid’ hail net restrictions.
Mr Walsh toured the Yarra Valley today with Member for Evelyn Christine Fyffe to inspect recent storm damage.
He said it was upsetting to see tonnes of fruit destroyed by marble-sized hail stones on Christmas Day.
“But what makes it more disappointing is that the damage could have
been minimized except for stupid Yarra Ranges Council policies
restricting use of protective hail nets.”
Mr Walsh said council policy limits growers in green wedge zones to a maximum of 60 per cent coverage.
Yarra Ranges Council Mayor, Cr Graham Warren said the council supported growers using netting to protect crops.
“In the last four years Council has received less than 20 applications for hail netting and none were refused,” he said.
Berry and cherry grower Mark Chapman from Chappies in Silvan said
netting was important for protecting crops from hail, rain, sun and most
importantly fruit bats.
He said they were not allowed to scare the bats without a council permit.
Bats can chew through vast amounts of fruit at night before farmers realise, making scaring them impractical Mr Chapman said.
“We’d rather not build structures but the demand for quality too from
the customers requires that if we don’t have high quality we can’t sell
the fruit,” he said.
Mr Chapman said their netting went ahead after they applied for a permit several years ago, despite a neighbour’s complaint.
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