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Efforts to eradicate banana freckle from Australia continue

Friday, 25 September 2015

According to ABC Rural, Australia's Northern Territory Government hopes to have eradicated banana freckle by 2017. A controlled introduction of disease-free banana plants is planned for mid-2016.

The eradication plan was formarlized in 2014 when an Emergency Plant Pest Response Deed was activated. A deed is a legally binding agreement between various levels of government and the national plant industry body that covers the management and funding of responses to a plant pest incursion. As part of the deed arrangements, every commercial grower producing bananas across Australia's banana growing regions is now paying a compulsory production levy of $0.75 per kilogram of bananas marketed.