Consumers are being warned the price of fruit and vegetables could spike after flooding in NSW and Victoria hit key agricultural areas.

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt joined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday to assess the flood damage around Forbes in central-western NSW.

He said prime agricultural regions had been “very badly impacted by the repeated floods”.

“It’s likely that these floods are going to have a cost of living impact on people because of the impact of prices of fruit and vegetables,” Senator Watt said.

The Department of Agriculture is trying to work out what financial impact flooding across parts of NSW and Victoria will have on agricultural production.

“I think that we can expect that it is going to be a very large dollar impact … we don’t have precise dollar figures but we’re certainly working on it,” Senator Watt said.

The federal and state governments are also discussing extra support for impacted farmers.

In Victoria’s north, where floodwaters continue to rise, farmers are counting the costs.

Premier Daniel Andrews unveiled a $351 million flood recovery package on Monday, to help Victorian communities start the clean-up.

It includes $165 million for emergency road fixes such as filling potholes and repairing surfaces to get people and freight moving.

“This is an initial amount of money and it will underpin those emergency repairs,” Mr Andrews said, as he warned of the inflationary aspect of the floods crisis in Victoria’s “food bowl”.

“It stands to reason, though, that there will be big impacts … because this is the food bowl of our state, the food bowl of our nation,” he said.

“Whether it be in terms of fruit and veg, cropping more broadly, dairy. Beef, sheep, meat – this is a very important part of our state and a very big part of our state. So there’s almost certainly going to be production impacts.”

In Victoria’s north, where floodwaters continue to rise, farmers are counting the costs, especially in the food bowl around Shepparton.

Victorian Farmers horticulture president Nathan Free told AAP fruits such as apples, pears, peaches, nectarines and plums have all been badly hit.

“If they get flooded now, you possibly may not have a crop the coming season,” he said.

“We won’t see it today and tomorrow but we’ll see it for the year to come.”

Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano said it was too early to say what the full impact on food availability and prices would be.

“Floodwaters have significantly impacted many parts of the agriculture industry,” she said on Monday.

“There will be significant impact and disruption coming through our supply chain in the coming months.”

Farmers in Victoria had been expecting a bumper winter crop but analysts say instead faced volume and quality downgrades due to the excessive rain.

RaboBank issued its Australian winter crop forecast on Monday. It found there’s been a significant impact on yields on low-lying crops with many underwater in central and northern Victoria.

“While Victoria was on track to break production records until last week, we are going to have to wait for all the forecast rainfall to come through and for waters to recede to see the full impact,” RaboBank’s Dennis Voznesenski said.

“The unfavourable conditions mean harvest is likely to be drawn out into January,” he said.

Flooding in parts of both NSW and Victoria has led to washed-out fields and unharvestable crops.

“The biggest impacts in Victoria, are expected in the low-lying country … there are literally crops fully underwater,” Mr Voznesenski said.

He said NSW had already felt the brunt of the flooding from excessive rain earlier in the year.

“Winter crops like wheat, barley and canola were already downgraded in NSW and we could see even more cropping land impacted now,” he said.

-with AAP