Bacchus Marsh vegetable growers have labelled as “one big disaster” the closure of at least 100 stalls due to lack of space at the state’s new fruit and vegetable market.
Jeff Jones, of Jeff Jones Plants and Produce, said growers would be short-changed by next year’s opening of the state government facility in Epping that replaces the existing market in Footscray Road, West Melbourne.
With only 200 stalls for vegetable growers, Mr Jones said many Moorabool producers could be missing out.
‘‘We don’t know what’s going to happen to us yet,’’ he said. “Size is a big issue. They haven’t factored in enough room in the design for the lifts to bring in crates so now they’ve had to cut back on stalls.”
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A spokeswoman for Werribee Vale Road farm Allawah said growers were ‘‘not happy’’.
Vegetable Growers’ Association of Victoria president David Wallace said the “forced” relocation of sellers to Epping meant at least 100 growers would lose their market stands. “We have people going back to three or four generations who have built up their market gardens, who might have to give it all up,” Mr Wallace said.
Major Projects Minister David Hodgett’s spokesman, Steve Mann, said the government had “inherited” the smaller Epping market from the previous Labor government. He confirmed there was a shortfall in trading space for vegetable growers. Experts had been called in to work out how to optimise the space, but this research was being assessed as were submissions by growers.
A legal stoush between the government and wholesale marketers is continuing.
The government spokesman said this could affect the planned opening.
