WHILE the Federal government's announcement of a new agricultural visa has been welcomed by some industries, particularly horticulture, it is not a silver bullet and won't help to address chronic labour shortages in the grains industry.
The new Seasonal Agricultural Workforce Visa, announced by Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud last Wednesday, would enable workers from the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) nations to work in Australia for up to nine months for three years in a row.
News of the visa was met with joy from all facets of the horticulture industry which has been calling for the solution for many years.
However, bringing in fruit pickers and meat packers from ASEAN countries won't help to address the shortfall of 1000 experienced heavy farm machinery operators which are predicted to be needed for harvest in WA this year.
Grain Producers Australia chief executive Colin Bettles said the needs of the grains industry in WA were vastly different to horticulture.
"The grains industry requires specialist, skills-based seasonal workers with the expertise and experience to operate heavy farm machinery, especially during harvest periods," Mr Bettles said.
"That's why immediate action is needed by the government now, to help overcome a chronic shortage of these skilled workers for the WA harvest which is rapidly approaching.
"While this situation has been caused by a number of factors and exacerbated by border closures due to COVID-19, it is causing great uncertainty for the WA grains industry."
WAFarmers grains section president Mic Fels said as far as he was aware, Southeast Asian nations wouldn't have workers with the skill sets required to operate million dollar headers.
"With the upcoming harvest and the skills shortage associated with it, whatever angle you approach it from you arrive at the same conclusion and that is we need 1000 skilled operators from the northern hemisphere to be able to come into WA," Mr Fels said.
"The reason we're saying the northern hemisphere is because pretty much the entire southern hemisphere, which includes New Zealand and the rest of Australia, does its hay and harvest season at the same time, so the travel bubble doesn't help much there.
"We need the season chasers - typically younger farmers from Europe and North America who travel around the world doing harvests and working on farms."
The latest ABARES Australian Crop Report says conditions are "very favourable" at the start of WA's 2021-22 winter cropping season.
The area planted was forecast to increase by five per cent to a record high 8.7 million hectares with production of 17.5 million tonnes which is 15pc above the 10-year average.
In order for WA to realise the full potential of this output - and as a significant contributor to the forecast record-breaking $66.3 billion year in national farm production and total winter crop production of 46.8mt in 2021/22 - labour supply is critical.
WAFarmers is appealing to the State and Federal governments to act urgently to allow experienced harvest workers onto WA farms in time for the coming grain harvest, with Mr Fels claiming that access to quarantine and flights is the missing link.
"I've got guys who have visas to come into Australia, but they can't get in because there are no flights and no quarantine spots, so that's what needs to be fixed," Mr Fels said.
"We need capacity to quarantine 1000 workers - people who have experience working on a broadacre farm who know how to not get harmed when working in that environment - and we need them before harvest, without that any other so-called solutions don't work
"WAFarmers has written to the Agricultural Minister (Alannah MacTiernan) and the Health Minister (Roger Cook) about this - specifically what we're asking for is access to quarantine and flights for 1000 experienced broadacre farm workers from the northern hemisphere."
Ms MacTiernan passed the buck straight to the Federal government, telling Farm Weekly that the federal government had set the priority for entry as repatriating Australians.
"The only exceptions are the Seasonal Worker Program and Pacific Island Scheme, which the McGowan government has supported and facilitated," Ms MacTiernan said.
"The State government cannot unilaterally start a separate overseas worker program.
"Unlike last year, we now have access to New Zealand and interstate workers and we know these have been a good source of labour in the past and we are continuing to run short courses for header operators through Muresk and TAFE using state-of-the-art simulators."
Like the new agricultural visa, the Seasonal Worker Program and Pacific Island Scheme are designed to bring in people to help fill shortages in the horticulture industry, with a further group of 131 workers from Vanuatu arriving this week.
Mr Fels said again, both the State and Federal governments seemed not to understand the differences in skills between broadacre farming and horticulture.
"Whether you've got a one hectare strawberry farm or a 3000ha grain farm, you're considered a farmer and both levels of government seem to think this new visa is a solution for farmers," he said.
"But we're not the same and this is not going to help us unless we can get experienced workers in from low risk northern hemisphere countries who have been fully vaccinated."
