Economic sabotage: Needles in Australian fruits.

Economic sabotage: Needles in Australian fruits.

by tonytran2015 (Melbourne, Australia).

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(Blog No. 170).

Economic sabotage: Needles in Australian fruits.

There is currently a sabotage of the food farming industry of Australia.
#needle in strawberries, #needles in apples, #needles in bananas, #Australia, #economic sabotage, #terrorism.

Economic sabotage: Needles in Australian fruits.

1. Needles in fruits.

The saboteurs inserted sewing needles into the fruits destined for wholesome consumption.

First it was discovered that some strawberries sold in punnets in Woolworth and Coles supermarkets in New South Wales and Victoria have sewing needles inserted in them. The affected batches are traced to a farm in Queensland near to Brisbane.

While the case is still unsolved there are many more similar cases which are suspected to be “copy cats”. Now there are cases of needles found in apples and bananas.

2. Terrorism ?

The Prime Minister of Australia compared the action of those involved to terrorism.[5]

The event cannot kill many people and cannot instill fear so it does not qualify as acts of terrorism. Nevertherless it is clearly an economic sabotage.

This is obvious as observed by a strawberry farmer:
” But he felt for those who were supplying the big stores, and were now being forced to dump stock… I went to the markets and the price went from say $1.50, $2 down to 50 cents, he said. ” [6]

3. Following the money.

In the current event, the losers are the strawberry (and possibly apple and banana) Farmers, Distributors and Supermarkets and indirectly the national revenue. Seasonal Tourist Fruit-pickers from Western Countries may also face tougher employment requirements.

The benefitors are PROSPECTIVE BUYERS OF Australian FARMS, Suppliers for exporters of the fruits involved, Importers of competing canned fruits. Foreign owners of fruit farms in Australia may use the sabotage as an excuse to apply for their status of PROHIBITED, FOREIGN OWNED AUTONOMOUS FARMS.

So the readers can now guess how powerful may the organizer be behind this national scale sabotage.

4. What is expected from the Government ?

The Australian government should try its best to catch the organizer of this economic sabotage.

Strawberry Farmers should be compensated for their loss of sale by the Federal government as the sabotage may be carried out by a powerful force against individual Australian farmers.

Government should strengthen the laws on ownership of Australian farms [8, 9, 10] to ensure that foreign sabotage brings no benefit to foreign saboteurs. Domestic saboteurs will get caught eventually.

Government should guide people on methods of consuming those fruits without risking harms from the current sabotage by needles.

5. What can consumers do ?

Consumers should help Australian farmers by consuming those fruits with safer processes. They may have to resort to

a/- Slicing strawberries into thin slices before serving.

b/- Slicing apples into small cubes before serving.

c/- Slicing bananas into thin slices before serving.

d/- Scanning fruits with sensitive metal detectors (Preferably installed by supermarkets at their fruit stalls for use by customers.). Currently metal detectors are only installed at wholesalers.

6. Conclusion.

It may sound far fetched but it may be possible that the sabotage may be organized by some powerful (and possibly foreign) force desiring to weaken Australia and its strategic farmers (to acquire their farms ?).

References:

[1]. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/world/australia/strawberry-needle-recall.html

[2]. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-45543764

[3]. http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-14/strawberries-new-threat-revealed-queensland-health/10246258?pfmredir=sm

[4]. http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-13/strawberry-recall-needle-found-in-fruit/10240956?pfmredir=sm

[5]. http://hunterinfo.in/2018/09/19/terrorism-australia-prime-minister-on-needles-found-in-strawberries/

[6]. http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-17/wa-drawn-into-strawberry-contamination-scare/10254746?pfmredir=sm

[7]. https://johnib.wordpress.com/2018/09/19/australia-strawberry-sabotage-akin-to-terrorism/

[8]. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/11/foreign-investors-will-face-new-rules-to-buy-australian-agricultural-land

[9]. http://firb.gov.au/

[10]. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/ForeignInvest

Added after 2018 Sep 23:

The Australian scare over needles found in strawberries has spread to New Zealand after needles were found in a punnet of the fruit in an Auckland supermarket… There have been over 100 reports of needles being found in supermarket fruit in Australia.

[11]. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-45617660

[12]. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/981291/south-china-sea-dispute-australia-to-anger-china-with-surveillance-drones-beijing

[13]. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australia-and-china-in-angry-war-of-words-over-foreign-influence-2017-12?r=US&IR=T

[14]. http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-23/china-wants-australian-concrete-actions-to-improve-ties/9789014?pfmredir=sm

[15]. https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-20/three-reasons-needles-could-have-ended-up-in-strawberries/10396822?pfmredir=sm