Weve got 80-year-olds driving trucks Farmers scramble to find harvest workers as border closures bite

They put the call-out for retired army officers, stood down Qantas pilots and now kids. Desperate farmers, who are about to harvest the second biggest wheat crop in a decade, are so short of staff that some will be using their primary school aged children to drive tractors and other heavy machinery.

“It is desperate,” said James Jackson, NSW Farmers Association president. “People will have primary school kids driving tractors with chaser bins and stuff for sure.” He said farmers have been scrambling to find staff wherever they can. “We’ve got 80-year-olds driving trucks.”

“The world is crying out for our grain at the moment,” says northern NSW farmer Matthew Madden.Credit:Grace Quast

A year’s worth of farming work hinges on the success of the four- to six-week harvest period of the winter grain crop, which includes wheat, barley, canola and chickpeas, and the stakes have never been higher. The NSW wheat crop alone is worth as much as $3.85 billion, with prices skyrocketing given a global shortage in wheat after a prolonged drought in North America.

A bubble announced on the border between Queensland and NSW on Friday will alleviate some stress on farmers in the movement of labour.

Farmers had complained bitterly that the hard border imposed by Queensland was making it difficult, if not impossible, for agricultural workers to cross. This included contractors, who bring sophisticated harvesting machinery, known as headers, into NSW. Typically, those contractors often own multiple headers and work with a team harvesting the wheat belt along the east coast, starting in Queensland and travelling down to Victoria.

Matthew Madden, a third generation farmer who grows wheat, barley and chickpeas on 1600 hectares near Moree, welcomed the decision on the bubble but said severe labour challenges across the state remained ahead of harvest. “It will ease some issues of contractors being able to get across the border,” he said. “But the worker shortage will still be an issue.”

“If you can drive a tank, you can drive a header. If you can drive a Dreamliner, you can operate a header.”

Matthew Madden, wheat farmer and NSW Farmers Association grain committee chair

He estimated that seasonal workers at harvest time across NSW usually numbered 10,000, and they are trying to fill that gap with retired army personnel, furloughed pilots, other retired professionals, grey nomads, and university students. Campaigns are running on Facebook to recruit workers such as Operation Grain Harvest Assist, which has targeted former army personnel and out of work pilots because they have transferable skills to operate big farming equipment such as the $1 million headers. “If you can drive a tank, you can drive a header. If you can drive a Dreamliner, you can operate a header,” said Madden.

For many farmers it’s now a race as harvest begins in NSW at the end of October and the stakes are high, as crops need to reaped before they spoil. “The worst-case scenario is you lose the lot if you don’t get it off in a timely manner,” said Madden, who also chairs the NSW Farmers grain committee. “The world is crying out for our grain at the moment.”

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, whose New England electorate sits across part of the east coast wheat belt, said the risk caused by labour shortage to farmers’ livelihoods is very real. “If we don’t have the appropriate labour that gets to Queensland, NSW and Western Australia, then people are going see the crops they have grown and ripened, rot in the paddock,” he said.

A farmer operates a machine known as a header, which harvests wheat and unloads it into an accompanying grain cart, called a chaser bin, during a harvest last year in northern NSW,Credit:Bloomberg

“We don’t need the border bubble because we don’t need the border at all.”

Robert Wood, NSW and QLD wheat farmer

Labour shortages have been exacerbated by state border closures and the shutting of the international border because of the pandemic, which stopped the usual stream of thousands of backpackers who work as seasonal farmhands. WA is experiencing similar severe labour shortages for its grain harvest because of it state border closure.

However, the implementation of the bubble on the Queensland and NSW border came too late for some farmers in northern NSW, who had already decided ahead of harvest that they would not be shipping grain into bulk handlers in Queensland but instead redirect it into NSW. This was because of the delays of trucks at the border, which need to turn around quickly to collect additional loads.

Robert Woods, a third generation farmer who has properties growing wheat, barley, chickpeas and fava beans, on both sides of the NSW and QLD border, said the bubble was a positive step, but there was no need for border restrictions.

“I don’t know why we have to add another barrier by creating borders when we can already lock down Local Government Areas. It would have been nice to see the country work on LGAs rather than borders. We don’t need the border bubble because we don’t need the border at all.”

He said the bubble may help the movement of workers, but it depends on whether workers trust the Queensland government not to change the rules again.

“The Queensland government flip-flops a lot.” Matthew Madden agreed there was a lack of faith. “Wherever we have border restrictions with permits it’s going to reduce people’s confidence of moving to those workplaces if they think it can change again.”

Anne Hyland is an award-winning writer and a senior correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. She was previously deputy editor of Good Weekend and has worked for The AFR and as a foreign correspondent. Email Anne at ahyland@smh.com.auConnect via Twitter or email.

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