Everyone pitching in and adapting for harvest season like no other with worker shortages

It takes a lot of workers to get grain from the paddock to port during harvest. This year, there is a distinct lack of skilled workers at every link of the supply chain. Header and chaser bin drivers, truck drivers and even grain-receival workers — the industry has rarely had more trouble filling these positions. But the ready-for-harvest grain and the farmers who grew it cannot press pause and wait for staff to magically appear. The grain needs to come off the paddock — now. In Lake Grace, family members are pitching in to help at Ed Naisbitt’s farm. His daughters, Kathleen and Emma, have returned from Perth to drive machinery and make sure the grain is not left sitting in paddocks. Mr Naisbitt would normally use overseas workers. His girls often come back to the country for harvest, but they help out at CBH Group receival sites — not with their dad on the farm. Mr Naisbitt said he was lucky to have his daughters as an option. “We always need seasonal workers and particularly this year when we lost our full-time worker, there was an extra need for us to get someone,” he said. “I try and source workers locally first and then get backpackers, but I just can’t get backpackers. “The good thing was that my girls were keen to come up. We put them on straight away.” This will be the first time his daughters have helped him full-time. “I think they would like to work for CBH because there is the social interaction,” he said. “I am enjoying having them here because they are learning and asking questions and picking it up as it goes. They will get a real feel for the land.” With people who would normally work at receival sites working on farms instead, it is no surprise that CBH Group received fewer applications for casual harvest positions this year. “While applications for our harvest casual positions were slow to start, we’ve had a reasonable response to our harvest campaign and have now completed our pre-employment checks and training,” CBH Group chief people officer Kelly McKenzie said. “We received fewer applications than we have in previous years, however we still received more applications than the number of people we expect to hire this harvest.” Getting the grain to the CBH receival sites and ports throws up another shortage in the harvest chain. Southern Haulage owner Chris Pavlovich pleaded to the WA Government in September to get seasonal skilled workers to the region before harvest. He was facing a truck driver shortage and with the busy period nearing, he needed something to be done to get drivers into WA as soon as possible. Now, harvest has arrived and he is short of staff. “We will have to alter our work program to get through this busy harvest period,” Mr Pavlovich said. “We are fortunate we have got other divisions, which we can turn up and slow down to meet that harvest demand. “We can do with young mechanics, boilermakers, drivers, and machine operators if they walk through the door. “We have had a little bit of success through online advertising but certainly not enough to fill all the positions and I am fairly confident that everyone in our industry is still in the same boat.” While Mr Pavlovich said his drivers had managed to keep up so far, he was concerned about the knock-on effect of wet weather. “It is still ramping up with the cool and wet weather but that doesn’t mean the problem goes away, it just gets pushed back a week,” he said. “If we do get continued cool weather, it shortens the season up because instead of spreading harvest over two and half months, all the farmers will want it taken off in six weeks, which will put on even more demand and stress.” He said he hoped the relaxing of State borders would allow him to get some workers from the east. As farming families do their best to make the 2020 harvest work, there is a push to produce reinforcements from within WA. A new Broadacre Harvest Operations Skill Set at South Regional TAFE’s Albany campus was created in response to the harvest worker shortage. The fast-tracked course aims to help people learn the skills which farmers are looking for to meet the demand for header drivers and machinery operators. The first students of the course graduated last month with skills in operating harvest machinery. Drew Reid-Smith said with her new skills and knowledge, she hoped to get a job as a header driver this harvest. “On job websites, they are always looking for people to have previous experience in the industry. It’s hard to get into the industry if you don’t have that experience,” she said.