3 days ago
Feral deer plow through $100,000 worth of vegetables at Flowerdale farm
Feral deer have eaten their way through $100,000 worth of produce at a fledgling vegetable-growing business near Melbourne.
Over just three nights, the deer ventured from public land onto a nearby farm at Flowerdale, stripping paddocks of valuable crops including cabbages and other vegetables.
Michael Collins and Sam Shacklock run the bio-intensive market garden and lost at least 80 per cent of their winter crop to the deer.
Mr Collins said it was a huge setback.
"We're going to be chasing our tail for the next 12 months at least," he said.
The young farmers had recently invested heavily in the crop.
"Not only is there the fertiliser bill, the seedling bill, there's the labour to keep it weeded," Mr Collins said.
"That section was coming into production in four weeks.
"It was going to produce until mid-September, so that's a massive chunk of what we were planning to sell at farmers' markets.
"It's only three nights that were unaccounted-for, and the damage [the deer] did in the cabbage was just enormous."
According to Victorian government figures, there are more than 1 million feral deer across the state.
The vegetable farm borders state government-managed parkland that Mr Collins said was infested with deer.
"We are growing what is effectively sugar for deer."
Mr Collins believed the government should do more to manage feral deer on public land.
"It's just not managed. The deer population is through the roof, and it's not necessarily my responsibility to manage the deer population," he said.
"The amount of regulation and permits you need to shoot deer, when it is a feral species, is atrocious.
"I think there is a massive state government failing in this, and there is piss-all funding or support for it."
The Victorian government has been contacted for comment.
The farmers are now racing to build a tall exclusion fence to keep the deer out.
They have raised funds and borrowed money to quickly build the fence before deer eat their remaining 1.6 hectares of produce.
Mr Collins has spent more than $25,000 on fencing equipment.
"I broke the bank on three-metre-high posts, but it may not be enough," he said.
"I've been told if they're hungry enough, they [deer] will jump that.
"There are orchards down the road that have deer fencing. The deer got in and stripped all the trees bare.
"[Even] truffle farms are struggling with deer."
