In Australia, Growcom has said fruit growers whose crops were damaged in Wednesday's hail storms on the Sunshine Coast will have no recourse to compensation.
Growcom chief executive Jan Davies told growers they will just have to salvage what they can and hope to catch up with better crops next year.
She said: "This is one of the issues that we raise on a regular basis with government ... even if our growers wanted to take insurance out there is no insurance available for them to protect them against these sorts of acts of God, and consequently unless the area is declared a natural disaster area there is no recompense for them whatsoever.”
Stonefruit grower Pat Wibaux would have lost his entire crop if he had not installed protective nets a few years ago.
"I'd recommend that they seriously look at the economics of netting any orchard that would require hail protection because in today's terms, you can just get wiped out in 10 minutes," he told local media.
