Shepparton Preserving Company: The Tomato Processing Industry and the National Interest

Mary Hiscock

Chapter 6 in Australia's Trade, Investment and Security in the Asian Century, 2015, pp 83-94 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: The community of tomato growers in Australia, which is largely based in the Goulburn Valley in Victoria, has been so affected by economic decline that their ‘viability was under threat’ (Australian Productivity Commission [PC], 2013). How and whether this situation can be improved is a challenge to government — federal, state and local — the wholesale and retail fruit markets, growers and producers. In the course of finding a solution to this decline, the media — both commercial and social — played a significant role in developing public opinion and in seeing its effect in action. The improvement of parlous social and economic conditions in farming communities where tomato growing is a major industry is complicated by the scope of Australia's international trade obligations — multilateral, regional, and bilateral. The range of legally compliant remedies is limited to restraints on imports by the alteration of tariffs or the imposition of quotas, including zero quotas (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT], 1994, Article XIX; Agreement on Safeguards [AoS], 1994). But the availability of these depends on serious damage being caused by a sudden and unforeseen increase in the level of imports of processed tomatoes or their sale in Australia at a price below the cost of their production. There are further limitations if the source of the imports is at a low level and from a developing country or where any action is foreclosed by the terms of an existing Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with the exporting state. It is important to remember that these goods are being lawfully traded and to interfere with the terms of trade goes against the policy of trade liberalisation, which Australia has enthusiastically upheld for a long period of time…

Keywords: Australia; National Interest; Trade and Investment; National Security; Regional Security; Asian Century; Labour and Migration; Financial Stability; Globalisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814632874_0006 (application/pdf)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789814632874_0006 (text/html)
Ebook Access is available upon purchase.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:wschap:9789814632874_0006

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in World Scientific Book Chapters from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().