Growers forced to find off-farm incomes after fruit fly financial hit

On a building site hundreds of kilometres away from his home, Jody Miltenoff works to make an income to offset the financial losses of Queensland fruit fly.

He has taken on a contract as project manager on a new hotel development in Port Adelaide, leaving his son to run his nursery business in Cambrai and orchards in Sunlands.

Mr Miltenoff said managing his jujube business from afar was challenging.

But between extreme heatwaves last summer damaging most of his crop and the ongoing cost of fruit fly management, he was glad to have a safety net.

"I'm lucky that I've got the construction industry to fall back on and supplement our income," Mr Miltenoff said.

"I've heard of some apricot growers that are getting close to retirement and just walking away, just saying that it's too hard."

Mr Miltenoff said sending some of his dried jujubes to Tokyo had been a boon but the loss of his fresh fruit market access had been tough.

Sending fruit to his main market of Adelaide requires costly cold treatment or fumigation, while shipping to the east coast means poor returns.

"Growers in the Riverland that have been affected by fruit fly have been sending to the eastern states, so they flood that market and … the prices dropped quite severely," he said.

Funding unused

The Riverland is one of two internationally recognised Pest Free Areas (PFA) in Australia, which provides growers with a trade advantage when exporting produce.

But since a Queensland fruit fly outbreak was declared in Renmark West in late December 2020, the region has been subject to rules which restrict produce movement and require approved treatments before it can be sold.

State department of primary industries (PIRSA) budget data shows of the $43 million allocated for fruit fly management in the last financial year, $10 million was unspent due to fewer detections of the pest.

According to a department spokesperson, in 2024-25 there were 7,794 Queensland fruit fly detections in South Australia, while there were 4,030 detections in 2025-26.

With fruit fly deductions almost halved, Citrus SA chair Mark Doecke said it was a step in the right direction.

"Any money saving is good money saving, that's for sure," he said.

But Mr Miltenoff said it would have been worthwhile to use the funds to adopt new technology to boost eradication efforts.

A PIRSA spokesperson said in a statement that allocation of funds was subject to approval through normal state budget processes.

Pathway to pest-free

Grower industry bodies Citrus SA and Summerfruit SA organised meetings in Renmark and Waikerie last week for growers and packers to hear about a pathway to release towns in Riverland west from the fruit fly exclusion zone.

The area known as Zone Two includes the towns of Waikerie, Cadell, Holder, Sunlands and Taylorville, which have all had consistently low detections of the pest in the past 12 months.

It follows the release of Swan Reach, known as Zone One, which was officially declared fruit fly free by PIRSA last November.

Mr Doecke said PIRSA had "taken too long" to lift restrictions.

"We started talking about getting some of these areas out three years ago," he said.

"If we can get some of these areas out that will instil confidence back in the public and we can ask them to get behind us and keep that fight going."

But the process to reinstate Pest Free Area status is complicated, and dependent on variables, such as the time of year because of the fruit fly life cycle.

A PIRSA spokesperson said it required "no further fruit fly detections for an agreed period of time and all protocol requirements are met".