Frustrated citrus growers have vowed to fight CSIRO plans to axe the 89-year-old Merbein horticultural research laboratory near Mildura, saying it will devastate research into essential regional industries.
The CSIRO has announced it will slash about 100 jobs and close the Merbein facility and a beef research laboratory in Rockhampton, in Queensland, because its funding was effectively cut by $63.4 million over four years in last week's federal budget.
Sunraysia Citrus Growers president Anne Mansell said local growers were deeply disappointed that the area would lose its high-profile laboratory.
"CSIRO has been in this area since 1919 and has been heavily involved in researching new mandarin varieties and seedless citrus fruits that have been of significant benefit to us in the export and domestic markets," Ms Mansell said.
Local commodity groups — including dried fruit, table grape, wine grape and citrus bodies — will meet today with the Victorian Farmers' Federation and the Federal Member for Mallee, John Forrest, to prepare a plea to take to Kim Carr, Minister for Science and Research.
Dr Everard Edwards, a research scientist and a deputy delegate of the CSIRO Staff Association, said staff at Merbein, where up to 30 jobs will be lost, were in a state of shock.
Some staff from the laboratory will be moved to Adelaide.
Leading climate scientist Graeme Pearman, who was employed by the CSIRO for 33 years and headed its division of atmospheric research for 10 years, said the closure was a failure on the part of the CSIRO and the Federal Government.
"There should have been a revision of the strategic needs of Australia that reflected the economy of the future, not the past, and some of the CSIRO divisions should have gone a long time ago, rather than just slowly bleeding to death," he said.
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