Tonnes of Queensland pineapples will be left to rot in fields as farmers struggle to keep up with a prematurely ripened crop, and consumers are being asked to do their bit.
Unseasonal winter rain caused a mass natural flowering event on farms across the state, resulting in fruit coming online all at once rather than in staggered intervals.
Central Queensland grower Ben Clifton said he would lose about a quarter of this crop.
"It's not that we haven't got more fruit to pick," he said.
"The fruit's getting more mature than what we're able to sell.
"In every direction, I look, I can see coloured pineapple that won't be eaten."
Crop woes add to costs
Mr Clifton has a 161-hectare farm in Bungundarra, about 50 kilometres north of Rockhampton
He said they had passed their optimal fruit maturity peak, which means each week, they'll be able to harvest less and less as the fruit will be too ripe.
"We probably had about a 5 per cent reject rate last week on what was unsuitable for market whereas this week that's bumped up to about 30 per cent," he said
"It's like a snowball rolling downhill, it'll get much worse.
"By mid to late next week, that'll look at something like 200,000 pineapples unpicked or picked and rejected."
This will have a major impact on farmers' bottom lines as well as the rising costs of fuel, fertiliser and staff.
And as labour shortages continue to grip the agricultural industry, Mr Clifton has only been running one harvest crew over the summer.
"Getting guys on the ground to help us get the fruit picked is probably challenge number one," he said.
"Since Christmas, [there] has been an influx of backpackers, and that's helping — we're able to maintain one crew to keep it going."
Push to purchase pineapples
The Queensland government is urging consumers to add the fruit to shopping lists to help with the glut.
"Our farmers support thousands of good jobs and work tirelessly to grow the world's best produce, and it would be a terrible shame to see those efforts going to waste," Agricultural Minister Mark Furner said.
"This is about Queenslanders backing Queenslanders, and you get some great tasting Queensland fruit to enjoy as well."
Mr Clifton said he had been able to get ahead of the glut so far by alerting agents at central markets as the flowering event happened.
"They've been doing a great job raising awareness with consumers and giving us feedback on quality and making sure that we're doing our job on this side," he said.
"A lot of things have been done very well to make this a pretty smooth flying affair where the fruit is coming in fresh and going out fresh."
While the next three months will be difficult, Mr Clifton felt more positive about the year ahead as he still had a large crop that hadn't fruited yet.
"The good news is there are still millions of plants out here that didn't flower naturally, which will have to be harvested over the next 12 to 18 months," he said.
