Tasmanian poppy growers are about two weeks from harvesting what appears to be a good crop – albeit a much reduced one.
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This year due to a drop in world demand the state’s poppy growers planted only about 7500 hectares, down from 13,000ha last season. A far cry from the heady days when 28,000ha of poppies were planted in a season in 2012.
Keith Rice, Poppy Growers Tasmania chief executive, said farmers would hope for a lot of sunlight between now and the harvest. “The crop looks quite good although there is not a lot of it,” Mr Rice said.
“We’ve got quite a reduced crop because that’s the nature of the industry and of world supply.”
However, the poppies that were blooming were helped to come along by rains over the Christmas period. The harvest is about a week later than usual and is expected to be in full swing from about January 15 through to February. Mr Rice said it’s a good result so far, given how the heavy winter and spring rains had delayed getting the poppies in the ground.
Mr Rice said he remained very optimistic about the future of poppy growing in Tasmania, despite challenges the industry would face in the future.
Mr Rice said the state’s two major poppy companies Tasmanian Alkaloids and Sun Pharmaceuticals were not growing commercially on the mainland after completing poppy growing trials over the last four or five years.
“Those trials were completed last season,” he said. “We’ve been assured by both the companies they don’t see a need to go back to the mainland to grow commercial crops for the foreseeable future and would concentrate their efforts in Tasmania.”
However, Mr Rice was not aware of the situation with Tasmanian Poppy Industries which also grows crops in Victoria and the Northern Territory and was looking at South Australia and New South Wales.
When Tasmania grew 28,000ha of poppies per year and the crop was cut to 20,000ha due to a dip in world demand there were predictions of the end of the industry in the state.
Mr Rice said there was some artificial demand in the market because of an over use of prescription drugs in the United States. In 2013 when the US changed prescription policies the demand fell away for poppies.
Mr Rice said Tasmania held its market share and still supplied half the global stocks of licit narcotic raw material.
