A farmer who has been forced to abandon an 80-acre zucchini crop has criticised supermarket giants such as Coles and Woolworths and said they need to lower the price of fruit and vegetables.
Ross Marsolino, 61, claimed that major retailers have demanded that major retailers lower the price of fresh produce so shoppers can save on groceries and farmers can make a profit.
His farm, Natural Earth Produce in Shepparton in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley, grows Roma, gourmet tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplants.
However, Mr Marsolino plans to cut the water supply to an 80-acre zucchini crop, estimated to be worth about $ 2 million, because it’s more expensive to harvest it.
Mr Marsolino said shoppers can only afford to buy one or two zucchini instead of a kilo due to the high prices supermarkets sell them for, which diminishes the demand for his produce and makes it nearly impossible for the farmer to make a profit.
‘If they were sold at $2.99 a kilo instead of $4.99 a kilo, everyone would be buying zucchinis. But there’s not enough in returns.
Farmer Ross Marsolino (pictured) has called on major supermarkets to lower the prices of fresh produce as he is forced to abandon a 80-acre zucchini crop due to less demand
The farmer said he could not afford the costs of picking, packing, and transporting the vegetables if he couldn’t make a profit from selling them to major retailers.
‘It hurts me walking away from an 80-acre crop,’ he told Daily Mail .
‘There’s no disease on the crop; it’s lush, it’s growing.’
‘We’re not retailing the right price to be able to keep the product moving and selling. Plain and simple.
Mr Marsolino is packing 1,600 boxes of zucchini a day instead of the usual 6,000 and is only two weeks into harvesting the 80 acres.
‘We’re controlled by what the retail sector sells our product at, that determines whether we keep selling the product or not.
‘This is what is concerning to me; we should be able to service the country with all our produce that we have here. Farmers are just trying to pay their bills.
‘The supermarkets need to be retailing at a fairer number. Plain and simple.’
Mr Marsolino said he was disappointed his workers were forced to stay home and miss out on pay while major retailers ‘ripped off the public’ (pictured, workers at the
Mr Marsolino said he was disappointed his workers had to stay home and miss out on pay while major retailers continued to ‘rip off the public’.
‘They could change this over like changing a wheel, by retailing the product at the right price. People are struggling with interest rates and yet they keep ripping off the public – they’re ripping off 25million people, every individual,’ he said.
The farmer has called on the government to introduce a regulatory body to keep an eye on retail prices and question supermarkets over any rises.
‘There needs to be some sort of watch on how the chain stores price their products, they need to report when the farmers aren’t getting enough in return to make their farms profitable,’ Mr Marsolino said.
Supermarkets copped similar fury from farmers earlier this month after the price of red meat skyrocketed in-store despite falling livestock prices.
Farmers claimed low returns were not being reflected in supermarkets, prompting calls for an ACCC inquiry into the profits being made.
Mr Marsolino claimed the price of meat and chicken had dropped by 30 per cent following the outcry – but that fruit and vegetable prices still remained too high.