After decades of struggle to keep out apples being imported from New Zealand, Australia growers are now facing another challenge of potato imports that might be made.

Lobby Group, Ausveg cautioned that bringing in potatoes from New Zealand all across Tasman for processing into chips, even under strict quarantine, may intimidate the national industry and cause havoc upon it, which produces no less than one million tons a year.

There a few sorts of potatoes in New Zealand which suffer from the baffling disease that is identified as Zebra Chip.

Although, the edibility of potatoes do not suffer a threat, the vegetables usually develop ugly dark lines after they are cooked, which leads to the refusal of a lot of processors from buying them.

Australia has prohibited imports of fresh potatoes from nations that fall under the category of those suffering from the disease.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has in the most recent times applied for NZ growers to be granted access to the Australian market under the stated quarantine norms.

Richard Mulcahy, Ausveg Chief Executive confessed that there were no identified health risks linked to Zebra Chip, but maintained that the after-effects of permitting imports from NZ could be grim.