According to Fox News, Australian police are investigating the poisoning of 7 million vegetable plants at a seeding nursery near Adelaide. The loss is estimated at $20.3 million USD and could more than double, even triple, produce prices across the country due to the decrease in supply.
About 4 million tomato seedlings were poisoned, as well as bell peppers, melons, eggplant, zucchinis and capsicum. Police have determined that a herbicide was introduced into the nursery irrigation system in late June. The poisoning has affected 350 hectares (about 865 acres) of production land which has the potential to produce about 200 tons of fresh produce.
Police are considering a range of motives including a grudge, competition based, the result of time established market shares or an act of vandalism. (They were very careful not to mention the possibility of a terror plot, though)
I have absolutely no idea as to the short or long term detriment to the soil and the report made no mention as to how long the land would be affected or what costs would be involved in making it fertile again. But, take a moment to consider the implications if this were to happen on a far larger scale. Even if the land would be unusable for only a single growing season.
MikeH.
About 4 million tomato seedlings were poisoned, as well as bell peppers, melons, eggplant, zucchinis and capsicum. Police have determined that a herbicide was introduced into the nursery irrigation system in late June. The poisoning has affected 350 hectares (about 865 acres) of production land which has the potential to produce about 200 tons of fresh produce.
Police are considering a range of motives including a grudge, competition based, the result of time established market shares or an act of vandalism. (They were very careful not to mention the possibility of a terror plot, though)
I have absolutely no idea as to the short or long term detriment to the soil and the report made no mention as to how long the land would be affected or what costs would be involved in making it fertile again. But, take a moment to consider the implications if this were to happen on a far larger scale. Even if the land would be unusable for only a single growing season.
MikeH.
Very interesting. I'm actually surprised that we don't see more of this type of stuff. Poisoning of a muni water supply, or some other system - with a choke point - that services large numbers of peopel.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like they poisoned the water system - probably a canal system - that feed the entire region. 30 growers were affected (out of 48).
This is the 4th time this type of thing has happened down there since 2002. That struck me as odd: once, maybe twice, but allowing your livlihood to be wiped out 4 times in less than a decade seems hard to belive.
Oh, wait.... they gave up their guns down there. Never mind...
It seemed odd to me also that terrorism wasn't the first thought. Australia has a genuine problem with immigrants who didn't go there to become Australians but instead want to bring their old beliefs and prejudices to all Australians. We better take note of this in the U.S. because I suspect our own batch of immigrants who don't intend to assimilate took note of it.
ReplyDelete