INDUSTRY stakeholders from all parts of the agricultural supply chain took part in the GrainGrowers Limited grains industry roundtable that recently talked over workforce and border issues for harvest.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
or signup to continue reading
With both sides of Australia anticipating bumper seasons after previous years of drought on the east coast, GrainGrowers chief executive Dave McKeon said there was no latent capacity in the system to fill worker shortages in the agricultural sector.
"In previous massive years on either side of Australia, we have been able to share the workforce across the country, so farmers could take a break from their farm and have a working holiday on the other side of the country but we don't have the ability to do that this year," Mr McKeon said.
Add to that the extra dynamic of international and various State border restrictions stopping workers from filling job vacancies, he said each of the country's major bulk handlers also had a high demand for labour this harvest.
"Grain Corp needs 3000-3500 staff, Viterra needs 1700 staff and they only have about half of the applications they need at the moment," Mr McKeon said.
"So although there is exacerbated farm harvest labour issues in Western Australia, the whole of the industry supply chain nationally has a real critical need to fill those roles in the next month or so."
Despite the major grain handlers using whatever solutions they can to try and attract workers, including innovative social media solutions through to direct campaigns, Mr McKeon said quite often the range of roles tended to be filled from within regional areas.
The roundtable, held by GrainGrowers had the full breadth of the grains industry attend, from farmers, farm input and research providers through to transport and harvest operators and Australia's major bulk handlers and exporters.
Industry leaders from the Federal Department of Agriculture and agricultural advocacy groups formed part of the discussion group, which highlighted the slowing down of the supply chains right across the country.
Representatives from the transport industry discussed the challenges their industry was facing around the wait times on receiving COVID-19 test results for transport operators.
"There are requirements within certain States for freight operators who cross interstate borders to have regular COVID tests, and the delay on their results is causing some real issues for those companies and our supply chains right across the country," Mr McKeon said.
"Whether it's the supply of farm chemicals, the ability to get the right technical advice out to a region or looking at some of the limitations for getting new farm machinery - there are a lot of hold ups at the moment."
Mr McKeon said the grains industry roundtables, which are usually held three to four times a year, provided a forum for each sector's issues and innovative solutions to be shared right across the industry.
In mid August, GrainGrowers provided a submission to the parliamentary inquiry on the 'Definitions of Meat and Other Animal Products' which stated that the current provisions in Australia were "not accurate and lead to confusion and unfair outcomes for all stakeholders involved".
In their submission GrainGrowers supported the proposed principles provided by the National Farmers' Federation (NFF).
This includes that food labelled with an animal product descriptor must be derived from an animal and minimum regulated standards that "prohibit plant protein descriptors that contain any reference to animal flesh or products and the use of livestock images on plant protein packaging or marketing materials".
Mr McKeon said it was important to provide an environment for both the livestock and grains industries to flourish.
"A lot of the debate seems to be an either or debate, but from a grains industry perspective it shouldn't be an either or argument," he said.
"Livestock feed is one of the biggest users of Australian grains, so it's really important that activities aren't undertaken that undermine the livestock sector, but at the same time we need to help facilitate and grow the plant based protein sector in Australia."
GrainGrowers is scheduled to hold its annual general meeting virtually on Wednesday, September 15.
