Coronavirus: desperately seeking seasonal workers for pick of the crop

Fruit and crops could be left to rot or ploughed back into the ground given the lack of backpackers and seasonal workers in Australia.

Quentin Dilley with his apple orchards growing Royal Gala apples at Upper Capel. Picture: Colin Murty

Fruit growers in the southwest of Western Australia are bracing for a dire shortage of seasonal workers, despite efforts by the McGowan government to lure Perth residents to the regions for work.

Fruit and crops could be left to rot or be ploughed back into the ground, given the lack of backpackers and seasonal workers in Australia following the COVID-inspired international border closure.

An estimated 7000 workers are required in WA’s agricultural and horticultural sectors between October and December to meet the peak harvest demand.

The Dilley family orchard near Donnybrook, a 2½-hour drive south of Perth, relied on Australian workers for more than 50 years until the 1980s. “That’s when something changed and it was harder to find locals who wanted to do that physical ­labour,” said Quentin Dilley, who with his brother Steve grows about 400,000kg of Pink Lady ­apples a year.

Unskilled workers earn about $1000 for a 40-hour week, but it has been more than 10 years since a Perth couple took up fruit-picking jobs there. The Dilleys say the last pickers from Perth packed up and left after just four days.

Steve Dilley said foreign backpackers had saved the family business. International travellers had two important motivations, he said: they needed to work because they had no access to Australia’s welfare system and, thanks to a federal government guarantee, they could extend their visas for a year if they completed a stint of ­regional employment.

Yet the pandemic has sent many backpackers home and as the Dilleys wait for blossoms on the freshly pruned branches in their orchard, they worry about who will want to help in a few weeks when the trees need thinning and then next autumn when the apples are ripe. “You’ve got a short window to get the apples off the trees while they are in peak condition — you’ve got to fill 1000 big bins in three weeks and it is hard work. We need people with grit who can get the job done at a critical time,” Steve Dilley said.

Albany strawberry grower Neil Handasyde said he had heard from many other growers and farmers who were preparing to halve the amount of crops they planted, given their concerns about sourcing labour. “There will be a real issue of food security… That’s real, it’s not a threat,” he said. “It’s just what people are doing — we are just not going to take the risk.

“Why would you invest in growing something if you’re not sure you’ll be able to pick it?”

The WA government has started offering bonuses to people who take up regional work over the coming months, including a $40 a night accommodation subsidy and $150-$500 in cash to cover travel costs.

The state is lobbying the federal government to extend some JobSeeker payments to those who take up the regional jobs.

The government is even working to recruit newly unemployed airline pilots to man the massive headers used to harvest broadacre crops.