Farmer issues scathing warning after tourists ruin crops to take selfies

A vibrant sea of yellow flowers may look like the perfect backdrop for an Instagram selfie, but Australian farmers are warning tourists that their dream photograph can come at a very real cost.

In South Australia's Barossa Valley, farmer Matilda Lienert recently shared footage showing groups of tourists trespassing and wandering through her flowering canola crop.

She noticed what was happening after several cars stopped nearby, before around 20 people got out.

The visitors appeared to have entered the paddock to take photographs for social media, despite it being private farmland.

An exasperated Lienert told 9 News Gold Coast: “You feel like the canola police really, and you don’t want to!”

The incident has reignited anger among growers who say the desire to get the perfect pic is causing damage to their hard work.

Members of the public are reportedly trespassing into the vibrant fields in search of a selfie (Getty Stock/Joern Siegroth)

Growing anger for farmers

“People are going really close to the flowers, walking into the crop, opening gates, starting to not shut gates and now picking flowers,” the farmer explained of the ‘disappointing’ events.

“It’s really disappointing because a lot of hard work goes into it; it’s beautiful, understandably people want to stop and take a photo, like we’re very proud of that, but there’s a bit of a line that has been crossed and we’re not overly happy about it.”

The canola crops flower with bright yellow blooms that influencers are seeking for a selfie, but for the farmers, these are working crops which have taken months of planning, investment and hard work to produce.

Another farmer, Tom Kitschke, told the outlet that influencers and the public should stop and think how they would feel if it was their garden being trespassed upon: “We don’t go into people’s gardens and start picking their flowers and veggies, it’s the same principle.”

Elsewhere, in Queensland, sunflower grower Craig Smith told ABC News about the problems caused when hundreds of visitors descended on his fields to film and take pictures.

“They do a lot of damage just walking through the paddocks, knocking plants down, compacting the ground, breaking sunflowers off and taking them,” Smith said.

He said some weekends were so bad that he had to chase hundreds of tourists out of his fields.

While like Lienert, he has some empathy for people wanting to admire the flowers and take photographs from a respectful distance, he objected to visitors trampling crops, leaving rubbish and stealing sunflower heads.

Some farmers are now organising scheduled tours and shoots for people to take their photos in (Getty Stock/Olga Rolenko)

Biosecurity risks

In New South Wales, Tim Condon told The Guardian that visitors are driving to farms, and causing a ‘straight-up biosecurity risk’ due to bringing in germs from elsewhere.

They could also potentially introduce weeds, pests or animal diseases onto the farmer’s land.

Tony Flanery, a wheat and canola farmer from Galong, told the outlet that farmers were already worried about foot-and-mouth disease and the consequences of people entering properties without permission.

Flanery recalled finding a couple far inside one of his fields, set up to take photographs.

“They basically refused to leave. Like they had the camera set up on a tripod and were settling in for the afternoon,” he said

On another occasion, trespassers reportedly cut a fence to drive into a paddock for photographs.

Chris Groves, another NSW farmer, put it bluntly: “It’s equivalent to someone jumping into your front yard in Sydney to take a photo with your flowers. That’s my yard, get out!”

Farmers insist they don’t want tourists to stay away from the countryside altogether, but they want visitors to recognise the difference between a photo backdrop and someone's livelihood.

They request that fans admire the view, take the photograph from a safe and permitted location, and respect the fence.