The South Australian wine industry operates alongside other horticultural industries in many areas of our state, including in the Riverland Pest Free Area (PFA). As a result, the wine industry plays an important role to help protect market access of these horticultural commodities.
In the event of a Queensland fruit fly (Qfly) outbreak in the Riverland PFA, detailed movement conditions for the South Australian wine industry will apply. These conditions aim to limit the spread of Qfly within and out of an affected area and are mandatory for wine supply chain businesses to comply with.
The movement conditions target operational activities including the transport and processing of winegrapes, sending of diagnostic samples and cleaning of harvesters and other regulated machinery and equipment.
As part of your vintage preparation, we recommend you review these movement conditions as documented in our Biosecurity Bulletin: Queensland Fruit fly and South Australia’s Riverland wine industry. Familiarisation with these movement requirements now will stand you in good stead to be able to act quickly to minimise operational downtime during an outbreak.
We remind you all that there are still current Mediterranean fruit fly outbreaks being managed by PIRSA-Biosecurity SA in metropolitan Adelaide, and with these come restrictions on moving fruit and fruiting vegetables that can harbour fruit fly.
Please be mindful when moving between Adelaide and regional areas (especially the Riverland) during the festive season. If you have friends or relatives in any of the outbreak areas, please advise them to keep their fresh home-grown fruit or fruiting vegetables on their properties. For those in the suspension area surrounding the outbreak zones, the advice is to reduce or stop the movement of fresh home-grown fruit or fruiting vegetables from your property and do not move them out of the suspension area.
For more information on the current fruit fly outbreaks, visit PIRSA’s website and look out for their media.