Invasive Species Council says moratorium a ‘knee-jerk reaction’ to inadequacy of national eradication program
New South Wales has temporarily banned the import of hay from parts of south-east Queensland as a precaution against invasive fire ants, which are on the move in large numbers thanks to flooding from ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
But the Invasive Species Council said the move is a Band-Aid response and accused the Queensland, NSW and federal governments of dropping the ball in suppressing fire ant numbers within infested areas.
On Friday, the NSW agriculture minister, Tara Moriarty, announced a one-month moratorium on the group biosecurity emergency permit, which allowed hay to be imported to NSW from lower-risk areas within the fire ant biosecurity zone. It followed the release of video by the Invasive Species Council showing multiple large fire ant colonies forming “rafts” to float in flood waters within the Logan River catchment.
Moriarty said farmers in northern NSW were already affected by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. “They need our support to get them back on their feet and don’t want a fire ant incursion adding stress and strain to their recovery,” she said.
“We have increased surveillance focusing on high-risk areas and are employing advanced tracking and modelling techniques, taking strong preventive measures to stop fire ants.”
Jack Gough, the interim CEO of the Invasive Species Council, said the moratorium was a “kneejerk reaction” to the inadequacy of the national fire ant eradication program to suppress numbers within the fire ant biosecurity zone, which includes greater Brisbane, Logan, Ipswich and the Gold Coast. The plan focuses on eradicating fire ant nests from a containment line around the area, and then marching that line inward until all the fire ants are gone. That effort, says Gough, is where “100% of the money is being spent”.
A Senate inquiry last year highlighted the failure of the program to also reduce fire ant numbers within the affected are.
“If the density is high, the risk of movement is going to be high,” Gough said.
Since December 2023, 390 movement declarations have been made for 6,500 tonnes of hay trucked from Queensland into NSW, the NSW Department of Primary Industries said.
Tim Ford, the managing director of hay and fodder marketplace Feed Central, said the moratorium was a precaution and that no fire ants have ever been found in deliveries of hay.
“Is it an overreaction? Probably,” he said.
“The fire ants are on the move because of the floods; they have not had time to establish and would need to make their way from the flooded area to the hay shed. There’s so many protections in place to ensure that the fire ants don’t tunnel through hay. It [the moratorium’] would seem a little bit over-zealous at the moment.
“There’s no incidents where fire ants have been found in hay. It’s 100% precautionary.”
Hay is primarily grown in the Lockyer Valley west of Brisbane, parts of which are within the fire ant biosecurity zone, and sold both to other parts of the state and into northern NSW and, depending on the hay type, down as far as Sydney.
Ford said both growers and buyers in Queensland were well aware of the risk and managed it through proper shedding and tracking.
“The growers that are growing hay in fire ant regions are very much on top of it,” he said.
“The last thing the fodder industry would ever want is for fire ants to be found in hay.”
South Australia and western Victoria are experiencing what the Bureau of Meteorology has described as a severe rainfall deficiency, with little pasture left in paddocks and spiking local hay prices.
Both states have biosecurity arrangements in place regarding the import of plant material – including hay and fodder – from within fire ant biosecurity zones.
Ford said that even in periods of dryness or drought, it rarely makes economic sense to truck hay from Queensland that far south.
“Victoria produces 80% of the 10m tonnes of hay grown in Australia each year,” he said. “There’s still hay production in Victoria.”
Most of that hay is produced on irrigated river flats in northern Victoria.
The exception is niche products such as Rhodes hay, a low-sugar hay which is sometimes fed to horses and ponies with insulin resistance. Buyers of Rhodes hay should check its providence to see if it’s from a fire ant exclusion zone, Ford said.