Aussie farmers have spoken out in frustration at having their crops trampled by crowds of immigrants trespassing on their land to make content for social media.
A flood of social media clips showing Indian, Asian and Middle Eastern trespassers on picturesque Australian canola farms are believed to be fuelling the illegal behaviour, which has also sparked biohazard warnings.
One farmer from the Barossa Valley in South Australia filmed a TikTok video of her own this week showing a group of Muslims entering her canola field, captioned “friendly reminder to stay out of farmer’s crops”.
Crowds of immigrants are trespassing on canola farms in South Australia to take photos for social media.
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Matilda Lienert told 9News the problem was getting worse, and people were going “really close to the flowers, walking into the crop, opening gates, starting to not shut gates, and now picking flowers”.
“Really disappointing because a lot of hard work goes into it,” she said.
“You’re welcome for photos, but just please respect out boundaries.
Another Barossa farmer, Tom Kitschke, appealed for visitors to stop, saying: “We don’t go into people’s gardens and start picking their flowers and veges, it’s the same principle.”
“To get the crop to this stage and then you’ve got so many things you’ve accounted for throughout the year, and having tourists walk through your crop isn’t one of them.
Brad Perry from Grain Producers SA said the behaviour was a biosecurity risk, and warned that selfish trespassers could be bringing weed seeds and diseases onto the farms.
Farmers in Western Australia have made similar complaints, with one man telling Yahoo News Australia he recently spotted two non-English speaking women near Toodyay.
“There were two cars parked just off the road, but inside the gates of a property. They didn’t look like they belonged,” he said.
“I walked down and tried to talk, but there was a language barrier. I don’t feel that they were aware it was a bad thing, but after pointing at the crop and shaking my head, they quickly left.”
In Cowra, NSW, locals have reported visitors, believed to have driven from Sydney, jumping fences, trampling crops and leaving gates open.
“It’s created havoc in some areas where they have caused extensive damage,” Karen Beaumont from the Cowra Visitor Centre said.
In Victoria, locals told The Age this week they wanted the road to a scenic lookout closed to stop crowds of tourists, who are defecating in public, littering, trespassing, and driving dangerously.
Header image: Left, right, trespassers on canola farms (Tiktok/9News).
