Australia: Bananas put on boats to get around floods

North Queensland banana growers have taken the unusual step of putting fruit onto boats to get around the flooded Bruce Highway.

Millions of dollars of fruit has been sitting in storage for the past week, and while the floodwaters are beginning to recede, it could be another two days before trucks can get through.

Clayton Reed, from Blenners Transport, says hundreds of pallets of bananas have been loaded onto a barge destined for Townsville.

"We sent some product to Cairns yesterday afternoon and yesterday morning," he says.

"That got put on a barge last night and it will be in Townsville this afternoon.

"We'll offload there onto some vans and try to get and down through the floodwaters south of there."

An Innisfail banana grower says the flooded Bruce Highway will hinder picking well into this week.

Doug Phillips says a big backlog of fruit needs to get to market this week.

"The sooner it can start to move the sooner we can get back to normal operations," he says.

"There is a lot of fruit still sitting around which needs to get out, so I guess it's going to take a bit of time to clear that even when they do get through.

"It will have some impact for another week or so I'd say."


Source: abc.net.au
Publication date: 2/9/2009