AMONG issues of major concern to the agricultural sector is the rollout of the Australian Agriculture Visa (AAV) program to address workforce shortages, with fears of ongoing shortages leading to some farmers making operational and commercial decisions, based on whether they think they can get workers or not.

This means that worker shortages will potentially become a food security issue, with harvesting all but dependent upon labour.

The shortage of workers was purportedly a problem in the sector prior to the pandemic, that has been plagued by reports of mistreatment of seasonal and temporary migrant workers leading to a dearth of applicants. 

Reports of sexual assault on young female workers, combined with low wages that are often below the award, has damaged the industry making it harder for farmers to recruit.

However, there has been some debate over the actual shortage of workers, with suggestion that it is only an issue on some farms, being attributed to the poor treatment of migrant workers, with labour market anecdotes enabling a negative discourse and thus leading to questionable policy development.

One example is the strong focus on being skilled as a requirement to work in Australia, which has become an impediment to farmers who just need temporary workers to undertake general farm work only, not necessarily skilled.

Victorian Farmers Federation, United Dairy Farmers, Wannon Region 10 Representative, Bruce Knowles, said the criteria could be softened to allow more international workers into the sector.

“Farmers just want general farm workers,” he said.

“Unskilled workers can always get on-the-job training, but the requirement to be skilled, to get a temporary visa, is making it difficult to recruit.”

Mr Knowles has a mixture of skilled and unskilled “backpacker” workers from overseas on his dairy farm at Tyrendarra, with some having attained permanent residency.

“The pathways to permanent residency that are offered with work visas, skilled or unskilled, is what makes it attractive for workers,” he said.

“We have workers that have become permanent residents now.”

The AAV program was introduced to address workforce shortages in the agriculture sector, with industry agreeing to a scaled approach in establishing the program. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is presently working with a group of employers to bring in an initial group of employees from Vietnam.

This will allow DFAT to test systems and processes before the program’s expansion throughout 2022, during which it is expected that a steady increase in employees will arrive in Australia.

Wannon MP, Dan Tehan, was supportive of the AAV program rolling out and said it was critical in addressing food security.