garlic question, page-13

A good story on Landline on this recently. I am city slicker but find the show quite interesting.

http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2010/s2925801.htm


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/11/2925166.htm

Australian-grown garlic makes a comeback
By Prue Adams

Posted Fri Jun 11, 2010 6:13pm AEST


Garlic is no longer imported only from China but increasingly from other countries such as Spain and the United States. (ABC TV, Landline)
There was a time when Australia boasted thousands of small garlic growers, but during the 1990s bulbs from China were being imported at a price that local growers could not compete with.

The Australian industry subsequently collapsed and imports rose to around 90 per cent.

Garlic is no longer imported only from China but increasingly from other countries such as Spain and the United States.

The Australian Garlic Industry Association says if it is imported it has been fumigated with methyl bromide and is often bleached.

But Nick Diamantopolous of Australian Garlic Producers says garlic farming is not as easy as it seems.

"It's the unforgiving crop and if you don't do everything at the right time when it's due it will come and bite you at the end," he said.

"I think it is one of the hardest crops you can grow in the world."

Mr Diamantopolous, whose company is backed by former Timbercorp chief executive Robert Hance, says he first got into growing garlic in the early 1990s, with mixed success.

He and other garlic growers say the main impediment to increasing the amount of garlic grown in Australia is the lack of availability of healthy, virus-free seed stock.

Mr Diamantopolous imported his motherstock seed from France.

Roger Schmitke grows garlic as a seed crop on his property in the South Australian Riverland.

He speaks on behalf of the small, volunteer-based Australian Garlic Industry Association.

"If you grow a pumpkin you put in one little seed and get many, many kilos of pumpkin back," he said.

"But with garlic you've got to have one clove, and one clove if you are a good grower will bring back 15 or 16 times what you put in."

He says garlic has been good to him. For 20 years, he and his family have lived off less than two hectares of garlic crop.

"In my time, I have seen many people come and go in the industry," he said.

"They don't put the effort in and possibly it's in the too-hard basket.

"The last couple of seasons, consumers are demanding more Australian than the imported stuff.

"I think that has helped us and I think that is what's going to drive the industry from now on."



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