Farmers hope new ‘Buy Australia’ campaign will boost local produce

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Local vegetable growers hope the federal government's latest Buy Australia campaign will reignite a movement they started 20 years ago. But in a cost-of-living crisis, it might take some convincing for shoppers to pay more for locally grown.

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00:00It's two decades since Tasmanian vegetable growers led one of Australia's biggest agricultural

00:09protests to Canberra.

00:11The tractor-powered Fair Dinkum Food campaign pushed for an overhaul of food labelling.

00:17As a result of that campaign, the fact that we had both Coles and Woolworths coming out

00:23with their Australian branded product, very clearly it gave consumers the opportunity

00:29to buy it and for a period of time they voted with their feet.

00:33But processed vegetable imports have crept back onto shelves.

00:39Supermarkets are stocking more of their own brands.

00:43Supermarkets are putting millions of dollars into their different home branded products.

00:47We have tiered products, so you know you've got the base product that's really quite a

00:52basic cheap price point.

00:54You might have a mid-tier product and then you've got some luxury products that are also private

00:58label brands.

00:59The Federal Government has committed $20 million to a new campaign encouraging people

01:06to buy Australian.

01:08But with budget stretched, do people really care where their products come from?

01:13Potato grower Matt Ryan reckons they can't afford not to.

01:17You can walk around with a pair of worn out socks or a pair of worn out undies for a couple

01:23of weeks and put up with it but you can't go without food and the processed food industry

01:29is a big part of that.

01:30But you know when you've got households that are struggling and you might have two products

01:34and really there's not a lot of difference between them but one is a lot cheaper, that's

01:38going to be the product that many households will select and that might not be a locally grown

01:43Australian or Australian product.

01:44Richard Boval is now semi-retired.

01:47His passion for locally grown food hasn't wavered.

01:51It's only Australian consumers by their behaviour that can make these industries stay in Australia

02:00and exist.

02:01If they're not buying Australian product, ultimately these factories will disappear and

02:07when they're gone, they're gone for good.

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