Australian citrus growers miss out on millions without US export markets

Thousands of mandarins have been harvested from trees across Queensland this season, packed into boxes for domestic and international markets.

Most of the loads have been sent to Asian countries but there is one major market not all Australian growers can access: the United States.

Currently the only citrus that can be exported to the US comes from areas that have held fruit fly-free status for a long time: areas of the Riverland (South Australia), Riverina (New South Wales) and Sunraysia (NSW and Victoria).

Industry body Citrus Australia estimates 30 per cent of Australia's total citrus production area isn't included.

Those growers are missing out on export earnings of up to $150 million per year.

"There's been a long desire to have exports from Queensland going to the US, but there's also been an expansion of production around throughout New South Wales that isn't in the old pest-free area," Citrus Australia chief executive officer Nathan Hancock said.

"Western Australia would also benefit from new market access to the United States as well."

Discussions have been happening since before the turn of the century.

"This precedes my time in this chair as the CEO and there's been a lot of people that have worked on this market access over, some people say, more than three decades," Mr Hancock said.

The US Department of Agriculture completed a risk assessment in 2015 that favoured Australia.

In 2021, a plan was published to authorise citrus into the US from parts of inland Queensland, Western Australian and the NSW shires of Burke and Narromine.

But it was never legally implemented.

An Australian federal Department of Agriculture statement to the ABC said "… the government continues to work closely with the United States government to finalise Australia's plant market access request for expanded mainland citrus access".

Negotiations have centred around cold treatment for fruit fly. Research has proved that if produce is refrigerated at or below 3 degrees Celsius for between 12 and 20 days, no fruit fly eggs and larvae can survive.

Growers say they already ship produce for other markets in cold temperature-controlled containers.

Destination for produce constantly changing

Allen and Sue Jenkin are citrus growers in Mundubbera, in the North Burnett region of Queensland.

Their company Ironbark Citrus processed about 8,000 tonnes of mandarins for the 2026 season, with 90 per cent sent overseas.

"I think out of our 240-odd containers, 200 of them already have cold treatment protocols … we're familiar with the technology," Mr Jenkin said.

Over the decades in the industry, the Jenkins have seen destinations fluctuate.

"When we started, Indonesia was our main market, then we had a lot of political issues that interrupted the supply … we used to trade with Russia and obviously we don't trade [there] anymore," Ms Jenkin said.

"Markets change all the time, mostly political, sometimes economic, the market becomes oversupplied and then it's too cheap and we can't make any money," Ms Jenkin said.

"A new market with people who can afford to pay the price that we need to get for our citrus is really important."

Costa Group is Australia's largest citrus producer, with farms in South Australia, Victoria and Queensland.

The global company purchased 2PH Farms in Emerald, central Queensland, in a $220 million deal in 2021.

"We assumed at the time of purchase we would be exporting to the US pretty quickly," Costa Group export and sales manager Simon Campbell said.

"We want to be selling more fruit every year, but domestically we are at saturation," Mr Campbell said.

With this year's harvest now done and dusted, there is quiet but hesitant hope in the industry that the 2027 crop could find its way to the US.

"It's been a long, slow boil. We've always optimistic, but it seems every time we get close, it's a little further away again," Mr Jenkin said.

Watch ABC TV's Landline at 12:30pm AEST on Sunday or stream anytime on ABC iview.