The price of fresh fruit and vegetables is set to soar in coming months as severe labour shortages cripple the horticulture sector leading to a fall in production across regional Australia and food rotting on the ground.
The collapse of overseas harvest worker numbers, particularly from the Working Holiday Maker program, will result in a forecast drop in fruit production by as much as 17 per cent and vegetable production by around 2 per cent, it found. In a typical year, more than 200,000 backpackers would be in Australia on working holiday maker visas and 50,000 of them would be working on a farm at any time, coupled with around 14,000 seasonal workers - largely from the Pacific Islands.
ABARES acting executive director Dr Jared Greenville told the outlook 2021 the value of the fruit, nut and vegetable industry was expected to represent more than 20 per cent of agriculture’s gross value in the next five years.
I’ll happily pay more for my fruit and veg if the industry will offer fair pay and conditions. This starts with the major supermarkets paying fair rates to farmers for produce. It’s madness that food will rot, instead.
The pay the workers
FFS I thought we were using robots now. Get with the times. Need an agricultural revolution.
Come to Yorta Yorta Country.
Depends where fruits and vegetables are coming from. I guess most from overseas so there should not be any increase.
Exploitation of workers has cost farmers Pay a fair wage and they will come
Farmers have to stop the exploitation of workers Over good conditions and fair pay and workers will come
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WA government pushed to increase backpacker cap ahead of fruit picking crisis | Sky News AustraliaWestern Australia Nationals are calling for the cap on backpackers allowed into the state on a fortnightly basis to be increased as fears mount over the fate of fruit crops with the number of seasonal pickers dropping dramatically. \n\nCurrently Western Australia allows just one plane of 162 backpackers into the state per fortnight due to coronavirus restrictions. \n\nNationals have made a push – ahead of the Saturday state election – to boost the numbers by spring, flagging the drop off in seasonal workers was foreseeable. \n\n“We could see that this cliff face was coming, we knew that seasonal workers, agricultural workforce was going to be an issue and sure enough we are still here facing those challenges,” WA Nationals Leader Mia Davies said. \n\n“We need to see visas worked on both with the state and the federal government.” \n\nExperts have estimated as many as two-thirds of backpackers went home in the last 12 months. \n\nWA Fruit Growers Association’s Steve Dilley said “the pool or the bucket of backpackers has been reducing dramatically, the estimates are two-thirds of them have gone home over the last 12 months”. \n\n“We’re scaring through this year but obviously if we can’t get those picked there’s no income and you go out of business.” \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Western Australia Nationals should call for farmers to pay decent wages. Plenty of people on jobseeker sitting on their asses at home. Send them out We need Elon Musk to solve this problem. Smart Fruit. Fruit with AI implanted in it that can pick and pack itself. The problem is the Smart Fruit might evolve and destroy humanity. Except the bananas, they would just do drugs.
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