22/06/2026
The next round of draft regulations for vegetables and berries has been released. There is a marked improvement in tone - which is a credit to Minister Gavin Pearce and all others involved. The more humble approach of these drafts shows that the submissions that people made on the first drafts, and the publicity that was raised, hit the spot. Fees and accreditation have now been scrapped for small growers. Yet the new drafts still have flaws that will affect everyone: even the smallest growers (including backyards), will not be allowed to sell leaf vegetables unless they notify the government (bye-bye cash sales!), have a food safety management plan approved by the government, and submit to occasional inspections by the government. This still leaves us living in fear that our livelihoods can be cancelled by capricious civil servants, and it will be a step too far for most very small growers, who will stop growing for sale.
Nearly every farmer has a story of being made miserable by civil servants who lacked rationality and ethics. We don't want bureaucrats interfering in our farms and backyards unless they have a very good reason to be there. Biosecurity have cited 10 deaths due to food poisoning from fresh produce on the mainland, over the last 10 years, as justification. However there were no deaths from fresh produce between 2018 and when OzFoodNet began reporting in 2001 (Rothwell et al 2018), and we have not found any cases of food poisoning deaths due to leaf vegetables in the two decades before that. In Tasmania we have never had a single case of diagnosed food poisoning from fresh produce (though we have about 200 cases a year of Salmonella from other sources, such as raw eggs and chooks). By comparison, between 1985 and 2025, lightening killed 16 people on the mainland, and none in Tasmania. Thus your chances of being killed by fresh produce are if anything less than your chances of being killed by lightening.
If you value having fresh produce, markets, and roadside stalls, if you want to sell produce yourself, or if you value freedoms and the basic right to grow food, or have compassion for farmers, then please write to BT, ([email protected]), and copy to Gavin Pearce, ([email protected]), before public consultation closes on the 30th of July. You can copy and paste the wording shown below as a template, if you wish.
To Biosecurity Tasmania, and the Hon. Gavin Pearce, Minister for Primary Industries.
The improvements made for Phase 2 of the draft regulations for leaf vegetables, berries, and melons, are welcome. Serious flaws yet remain, for which I ask:
1) There shall be no notifications, inspections, or management plans required of small growers. The money spent on these programs is unlikely to save a single hospital admission - and this at a time when the treasurer aims to cut 1,700 jobs from the public service, and will not guarantee that health services can be maintained at their current level. Save the money on inspectors and pay another nurse!
Small growers are already motivated to ensure the safety of their produce because they are highly exposed to public liability, (unlike employees of a corporation), and failing to make their produce safe would result in being sued, and losing their home or farm. Moreover they usually have close relationships with their customers, and would dread the thought of making them ill. They do not need any more motivation.
2) Rather than management plans and inspections, the government shall ensure that food safety information resources are available to all farmers and backyard growers. Historically, the only significant sources of pathogens on leaf vegetables are animal manure, and contaminated sprinkler water. The risk posed by manure is addressed nationally by simply allowing 90 days to pass between applying manure fertiliser and planting a vegetable crop (NSW EPA n.d.). The water issue is addressed by not using water from dams that could be contaminated by livestock or high populations of water birds, or otherwise by using drip irrigation rather than sprinklers (FPSC 2025). Having this information available to farmers in a clear format will practically guarantee the safety of produce from small Tasmanian growers.
3) Rather than giving notice to the government, growers might be required in defined circumstances, and only when feasible, to provide a means of tracing produce, such as an ABN or phone number on the product packaging. These circumstances would only include the products bearing the highest risk, and circumstances where tracing would otherwise be impossible. They would not include, for example, produce sold to a food co-operative, or sold directly to the end user, nor produce that carries a very low risk, (such as bunches of mature kale leaves, which are borne high above the ground and are less likely to be eaten raw).
4) While a hectare of relevant crop area is a convenient measure to delineate small from large growers, it does not account for differences in land use intensity, and may not be the most relevant measure. I ask that consideration be given to defining small growers as those that do not have administrative or managerial staff to help them carry the regulatory burden.
Sincerely,
(your name goes here!)
References
FPSC (Fresh Produce Safety Centre) (2025) 'Fundamental Guidelines For Fresh Produce Food Safety', https://fpsc-anz.com/fundamental-guidelines-for-fresh-produce-food-safety/
NSW EPA (no date) 'Safe compost for fruit and vegetables: A guide for the supply of recycled organics to fresh produce growers',https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/compost-producers-factsheet.pdf
