How farm work visa in new trade deal could prevent fruit price rise

A new plan to fill Australian farm jobs won’t come in time to stop fruit and vegetable prices rising on supermarket shelves.

Fruit and veg prices are still poised to rise on supermarket shelves with the industry warning a new farm workers visa for southeast Asian countries will do nothing to solve the immediate workforce shortage.

Strawberries are expected to be one of the first to cop the price hike.

The new UK free-trade deal wipes out requirements for British backpackers to do at least 88-days agriculture work to extend their stay in Australia by a year.

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud announced a new agriculture visa will be ready by the end of the year. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said the Nationals secured an agreement with Prime Minister Scott Morrison for a new three-year agriculture visa for 10 ASEAN nations, which include Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore, to replace the 10,000 Poms a year expected to be lost in the trade deal.

But Growcom spokesman Richard Shannon said while the new visa was welcome it would “in no way solve” the critical shortage already faced.

Mr Shannon said strawberries would likely to be the first to go up, with farmers currently making decisions on whether to plant the crops shortly. 

“This announcement of a new visa goes in no way to solve our immediate and critical shortage of seasonal workers. Only the reopening international borders or a dramatic increase of quarantine capacity will fix that,” he said.

But he said in the longer term it would help to address worker shortages.

Mr Littleproud said the visa would give farmers certainty about the workforce in the future.

“We have been smashed by Covid-19 and while we acknowledge that it will take some time for those workers to come in, this sets the parameters and creates the environment for the agricultural industry to have confidence that they will have a consistent season workforce in the future,” he said.

Agriculture Department data has predicted some produce could rise in price by about four per cent due to the shortage of workers to pick the crop, with fruit in particular to be impacted.

The visa, which is still to go through Cabinet and will require agreement with the ASEAN nations, will allow visa holders to work nine months in Australia before returning home for three months.