THE SOUTHERN
Part of the Farmer Group Rural Newspapers Covering Victoria Published since 1986
MARCH, 2015
BEEF WEEK WRAP-UP
4-5
486 Whitehorse Road, Surrey Hills, 3127
FARM WORLD LIFT-OUT
WATER MANAGEMENT
33
Poppy licensing wait could hamper industry growth By DAVID PALMER
WARMING WEATHER
Vintage at Sutton Grange vineyard near Bendigo began in mid-February – at least two weeks earlier than usual. Winemaker Gilles Lapalus confirms earlier grape maturity brought on by changes in the climate. Story pages 8-9
PHOTO: David Palmer
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S REDUCE SE OU GREENH SION IS GAS EM
VICTORIAN farmers contemplating growing opium poppies for the first time have been urged “not to sit on their hands” in terms of gaining licences and approvals to grow the tightlysecured crop. Stewart Holland, a biological policy officer with the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources at Knoxfield, told a poppy growers’ information morning at Bannockburn near Geelong last month that a necessary licence application would take a minimum of 60 days to make its way through the DED. Growers also would have to initiate police security checks on themselves and any other people involved in producing the crop. Anyone with a drug or armed robbery conviction would not be able to secure a growing licence. Other requirements were satisfactory completion of a credit history check and development of a risk management plan and licence application with crop processor TPI. Mr Holland said only one grower completed his risk management plan satisfactorily first time around last year.
However, TPI officer Colin Smith told the meeting licences were slow to be granted last year and that had limited the area sown. Fees payable by each grower to DED would amount to $1300 a year, which can be compensated by TPI. Established a decade ago in Tasmania, last year was the first in which TPI entered into commercial contracts on the mainland, mostly in Victoria. Harvested straw from a 600-hectare Victorian harvest had mostly been delivered to TPI’s new 10-hectare Coolaroo razorwire-secured processing facility 10 minutes from Melbourne airport. Currently TPI’s existing plant at Cressy, Tasmania, is being dismantled and transported to Melbourne to be part of a bigger more efficient plant at Coolaroo. Mr Smith said the best TPI crops yielding two tonnes per hectare had been harvested in the Ballarat district this year. He said the company was aiming to contract about 10,000 hectares in Victoria and had committed to the Victorian government that it would operate only in this mainland state until demand outstripped supply.
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