Australia Weather News

Three cane-growing regions are also in Debbie's path. - ABC

Cyclone Debbie has the potential to wipe out fruit, vegetable and sugar cane crops worth more than one billion dollars, devastating regional communities and sending prices soaring at the green grocers.

Debbie is expected to cross the coast on Tuesday morning south of Bowen as a large category four cyclone, with winds in excess of 200 kilometres an hour.

The Bowen area, between Mackay and Townsville, produces most of Australia's winter vegetable crop, including capsicum, tomato, eggplant, pumpkin, cucumber, beans and corn.

It also supplies tropical fruits such as mango, rockmelon, pineapples and lychee.

Bowen Gumlu Growers Association president Carl Walker said horticulture in the region turned over $450 million a year and employed 3,500 people.

Three cane-growing regions are also in Debbie's projected reach: Burdekin, Proserpine and Mackay.

Their combined harvest last year was 17.5 million tonnes worth $850 million and represented half of the national sugar cane crop, according to the industry representative group Canegrowers.

It said there were more than 1,100 cane growing businesses in the predicted storm zone.

A spokeswoman said cane had the ability to bounce back, but only if it was not snapped by high winds or under water for more than 24 hours.

Fruit and vegetable farmers could see $2m in individual losses

"Our 66 growers are looking at individual losses of between $100,000 and $2 million if Cyclone Debbie stays on its current track," said Mr Walker, a horticulturalist.

"If we take a direct hit we're gone, but we're also concerned about heavy rain and flooding, particularly with the forecast tidal surges."

He said he was still in overdraft after Cyclone Ita in 2014, which left his "small-scale" business with a damage bill of $300,000.

"The Burdekin-Bowen-Whitsunday region has been hurting bad with the mining collapse, bad prices and drought," Mr Walker said.

"So I'm worried that a lot of small businesses could go to the wall [if the region is badly affected by the cyclone]."

"Many of the towns in the region rely on backpackers for revenue and if there are no crops, the backpackers won't come," said Rachel Mackenzie from Growcom, the peak group representing Queensland's horticultural industry.

Losses could lead to price rise

If fruit and vegetable crops take a hammering, consumers can expect to pay more for their produce from about June, when harvesting starts, Mr Walker said.

In 2011, wet weather in Bowen led to a national shortage of tomatoes, pushing the price of a box from the long-term wholesale average of $14.30 to $21.52, according to a Growcom report.

"Vegetables are very expensive to plant and there's a huge capital investment, but the profit margins are low," Ms Mackenzie said.

Even farmers yet to plant the majority of their crops face the serious problem of losing their valuable topsoil amid high winds and flooding, she said.

However, farmers inland from the Queensland coast are hoping Debbie will bring drenching rains.

A record 87 per cent of the state is now drought-declared.

Agforce northeast regional manager Paul Burke said that while there was great concern for farmers in the cyclone's path, heavy rain would be a real positive for cattle producers in the hinterland of Townsville and Mackay, around places such as Charters Towers and Collinsville.

ABC