Bananas price liable to go sky high

Prices not seen since cyclone Larry five years ago are expected as farmers begin a year-long struggle back to full production.

Banana and sugar cane farmers were hit worst in the storm. Cane growers expect more than $500 million to be wiped from their $2.5 billion industry.

The National Farmers Federation said the checkout price for sugar should stay the same since it was a global market.

More than 75 per cent of Australia's banana crop was destroyed, with Tully and Innisfail taking the brunt of the damage.

Australian Banana Growers Council chairman Cameron MacKay, who has a farm at Tully, expected supplies to be disrupted for four months. Return to full production could take up to a year.

"This is a fairly significant disaster for our industry," he said.

"Many growers are facing massive repair costs as crop insurance is not available for banana farms. Therefore the industry is facing a huge financial and personal struggle to return production to its previous levels of more than 450,000 cartons per week."

Mr MacKay said shoppers would see a lot of storm damaged fruit. But he said that while it might look rough it would taste the same.

Woolworths spokesman Benedict Brook said the company had about one week's supply of bananas.

Bananas were yesterday selling for about $2.75 a kilogram.

Mr Brook said Woolworths was not considering importing bananas at this stage.

While not closed to importing the fruit, National Farmers Federation spokesman Brett Heffernan said the federal government must not relax its tight quarantine laws.

Steve Greenwood, chief executive of the Canegrowers organisation, said some sugar cane farmers would never recover from Yasi.

But some farmers remained hopeful, he said.

"Cane is resilient and . . . there is still a chance that it may still yield something."