Australia and New Zealand are involved in an angry exchange of words - over avocados.
The Australian avocado industry has criticised the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, questioning its competence at detecting diseases in the fruit.
And New Zealand growers have in turn accused their Australian counterparts ofdirty tricks to restrict imports and protect their own growers.
The row comes as Biosecurity Australia announced that restrictions on New Zealand avocado imports will be relaxed after it was found avocado scab is not present here and never has been. It introduced a number of controls on New Zealand imports at the end of last year, following initial reports of scab being present in New Zealand.
Biosecurity Australia said initial reports of avocado scab were a misdiagnosis by New Zealand and that there was no evidence the disease was ever present in New Zealand. But Avocados Australia said yesterday it was not in a position to guarantee that New Zealand was free of the disease.
Chairman of Avocados Australia Henry Kwaczynski said: "The competence of New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to demonstrate that New Zealand is free of avocado scab is in question. This doubt clearly means that we can't be 100 per cent sure that New Zealand is free of the disease."
Avocado Industry Council chairman Hugh Moore yesterday likened Avocados Australia to an ostrich with its head in the sand.
"They put so much effort into trying to close the border and now they just don't want to accept the fact," he said.
"Our view has always been that if we had avocado scab, then the Australians had it also. Identical symptoms of the brown, corky, mosaic tissue were present on their fruit in the same marketplace. In Australia this was defined as wind rub, which was also how our industry had defined this in our grade standards."
