Nationals Senator Perin Davey says while Australia’s food supply will be largely unaffected by the coronavirus pandemic as it produces enough food to supply 75 million people, the rice-growing industry “is the exception”.
Ms Davey told Sky News several years of drought meant the rice harvest from NSW-Murray growers dropped from an average of 800,000 tonnes per year to about 55,000.
She said “as a country, we eat 300,000 tonnes of rice a year”.
“Normally our rice industry is well equipped to deal with the peaks and troughs of rice production because it is so dependent on water," she said.
Vietnam, Australia’s largest source of imported rice, has announced it will no longer be exporting rice due to the domestic situation as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which has “thrown another spanner in the works".
“Because of COVID-19 a lot of countries are protecting their own interests, which is their right and is sensible to do," she said.
