Border restrictions: Victorian hay and grain contractors locked out of NSW

NSW farmers have been left without their usual Victorian hay and grain contractors as workers are shut out of the state due.

Shut out: Peacock’s Transport and Hay Contracting manager Bec Wolfe, says the company could lose about $100,000 as a result of the tightened NSW and Victoria border restrictions.

THE tightening of the NSW and Victoria border is causing a myriad of issues for workers in the grain industry who have been cut off from servicing customers.

Peacock’s Transport and Hay Contracting manager Bec Wolfe, based in Rochester, said with the restrictions in place the company would not be able to service NSW this season.

New restrictions imposed by the NSW Government on August 7 only allow “critical workers” — which have been defined as those who can do a job that is unable to be performed by a local worker — to enter the state.

The changes come as the company is just weeks away from their busiest time of the year, Ms Wolfe said.

“Farmers in NSW will hope someone can fit them in, but usually at this time of the year contractors would already have their customer base sorted,” Ms Wolfe said.

“We also all have different and unique services, and everybody has a specific way they like something done.”

Ms Wolfe said her business was likely to take a financial hit as a result of the restrictions, and faces losing about $100,000 this year.

Apsley based harvest contractor Hamish Kester and partner Maddi Redding are also expected to lose about 50 per cent of business this season if they remain shut out of NSW.

“For the last four years growers in Euabalong haven’t had a crop so they were very excited to see it growing this season,” Ms Redding said.

“So with Hamish not there, it will be first in best dressed for grain growers at harvest.”

Ms Redding is calling for those who make decisions to be better informed about the industry.

“After contacting three people in the NSW Government two of those people didn’t know what a header was,” she said.

“People who make these decisions need to be better informed.

“They just think a crop can wait, but it can’t, when it is ready it needs to come off.”

For agronomists based in NSW with clients in Victoria, the situation could be worked around but grain growers would have to start from scratch with new agronomists in their own state.

“I have clients based in Rochester that I am unable to go and see,” I K Caldwell Moama based grain agronomist Ian Pearse said.

“We can shuffle around the boundaries so our agronomists in Victoria can service them but it is inconvenient and growers need to build that relationship up with a second person.

“It is a critical time for growers at the moment and they have good crops and are just trying to get them home.”

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