Low take-up of invasive weed herbicide funding

10 October 2018

Ipswich City Council will cease a herbicide subsidy for the management of fireweed.

Health, Security and Regulatory Services acting chief operating officer Kylie Goodwin said the Herbicide Subsidy Program had originally been developed to encourage landholders to manage fireweed on their respective properties. Council approved the program, which ran from 20 April 2017 to 30 June 2018.

Fireweed is an introduced weed that can be poisonous to livestock and competes with pasture species, reducing the viability of agricultural production. Large infestations of fireweed on both private and public land had become quite visible towards the end of 2016, due to favourable weather conditions that allowed infestations to survive the winter.

The $20,000 program subsidised the purchase of herbicides for landholders, who developed and implemented a Property Pest Management Plan and provided council with the appropriate supporting documentation.

“Council received only 16 applications for subsidisation, processing eight direct payments. Unfortunately there was only a low uptake of the subsidy,” Ms Goodwin said.

“Herbicide subsidy programs have their advantages and disadvantages, with the most effective being supported by long term management strategies and the appropriate resourcing commitment by all levels of government, landholders and industry. In this case, the management of fireweed has little of either.

“The species requires significant investment from landholders to control, has little to no environmental impacts, is concentrated in the South East of Queensland and is not prioritised in local government areas with broad scale infestations.”

Ms Goodwin said given that fireweed is an annual or a short-lived perennial, it is difficult to accurately measure the success of the herbicidal application over the short-term.

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