A PROMISE to the growers of Bolgart has been shattered after CBH Group reneged on its commitment to re-open the town's receival site for the 2023/24 harvest, a move which will collectively cost farmers in the locality more than $500,000 per year.
This year will be the second the Bolgart bin has not opened, with the site initially shutting down temporarily to receive necessary electrical and structural upgrades.
At the time, growers were told by CBH the work would cost an estimated $800,000 and were guaranteed it would be completed in time for next year's harvest.
However, last week they were informed that cost had blown out to more than $4 million as the price of the initial quote had more than doubled and a new weighbridge was now also required.
As a result, the co-operative decided the site had reached the end of the line and would close permanently.
As a conservative estimate, there are 12-15 growers in the Bolgart area who each deliver between 2000-5000 tonnes of wheat every year.
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Bolgart farmer Julian McGill said they were consistent in terms of yield and how much they delivered to the site, but CBH was using "smoke and mirrors" to make it seem as though it's under utilised.
"CBH has told us only eight growers use the bin and it only brings in 14,000t per year, however I know at least 12 growers who used it the last time it was open and the past few harvests they've kept it closed until December," Mr McGill said.
"If they opened it at least two weeks earlier, like we ask them to every year, they would capture all the wheat we had already had to cart up the line and this place would fill and shut.
"There's about 22,000 hectares of crop planted in the Bolgart catchment, even if we could get half of that in wheat to the local bin, we would fill it 1.5 times."
CBH has attributed the decision to keep the bin closed permanently to its Network Strategy, which was released in 2016.
Prior to releasing the strategy, CBH spent three years analysing the network to determine the optimal supply chain from paddock to port and decided it would focus investment into the 100 sites that received over 90 per cent of the annual crop.
A CBH spokesman said as a result, it was decided the 102 sites which received the remaining 10pc of the annual crop would only be used as required until they reached the end of their useful life and no major maintenance would be invested into them.
"One of these 102 non-network strategy sites included Bolgart, which at the time was forecast to reach its end of life within four to 10 years, that is sometime between 2020-2026," the spokesman said.
"Following electrical issues experienced last year at the site, combined with ageing infrastructure and the significant investment required to maintain the site, the decision was made that Bolgart had reached the end of its useful life and would close permanently."
"CBH understands the impact that this will have on some growers and we will work closely with them to ensure that they have enough information available to make decisions for this upcoming harvest."
The decision not to invest money into maintenance at the site was a change of tune for the co-operative, as within the past couple of years it had spent more than $200,000 laying down new bitumen.
With Bolgart no longer an option, growers will be forced to cart their grain to Calingiri, Avon or Meenaar, all of which have their own issues.
The first is further from port, meaning growers will have to pay extra freight fees, and the latter two require truck drivers to travel along the Irishtown Road, which is not fit for vehicles that size.
With 35,000t not being delivered to the Bolgart bin, it adds up to an extra 700 truck movements travelling between 25 and 80 additional kilometres along local roads every trip.
Bolgart grower Brant Guthrie said the worst section of the Irishtown Road was between Sheen Road and the Shire of Northam boundary.
"The trees hang over the road, there's a drop off at least the size of a beer can and the bitumen is barely wide enough for one truck, yet two are supposed to pass on it," Mr Guthrie said.
"There are also two school buses which run on that road and it's only a matter of time before a major accident happens.
"That's the road CBH now wants us to use to cart our grain on and because roads are a local government responsibility, CBH doesn't have to do anything to make them safer."
The issues with the other receival sites go beyond safety, with harvest efficiencies and extra costs also coming into play.
At Bolgart, each grower was able to get up to nine loads of grain delivered per day.
On Mr McGill's biggest day last harvest, he was only able to deliver five to Calingiri.
And that's better than the other alternatives - with headers stripping 35-45t per hour, if growers have to go to Avon or Meenaar to deliver grain, they physically cannot get back in time to keep the machine running.
For Mr McGill, that equated to a 40pc reduction in harvest efficiency last season and about an extra $30,000 in costs.
"It's hard enough to farm at the moment with the cost of inputs, plus there's already extra charges on delivering to CBH this year," he said.
"Now they want us to pay extra rail and road freight to deliver to Calingiri, which is further from the port, and it all adds up to cost each of us between $30,000-$50,000 extra every year.
"Our co-operative will post a record profit this year and yet they're shutting our local bins down when they have the money to fix them and keep them operational.
"CBH apparently prides itself on returning value to growers, but at the moment all it's doing is costing us more and more and we don't get any value."
