Harvest truck shock, embattled farmers face logistics shortage

Farmers who have struggled through record floods and rainfall are facing a fresh hurdle, with warnings of a national truck shortage.

Australia’s peak trucking body has warned that a severe national shortage of trucks, trailers and drivers will further delay an already late winter harvest for many farmers.

Broken local roads and sodden driveways limiting farm access, truck drivers forced to take circuitous routes around destroyed local roads and short-staffed storage facilities and the spiralling cost of diesel will extend delays and increase costs.

Australian Trucking Association chair David Smith has advised farmers to “look at on-farm storage options”, particularly as the logistics sector becomes further stretched over the Christmas period.

“We need to get into the harvest to work out how big the problem will be, but I think I’ll throw caution out that there will be major issues for the farming community,” he said.

Australian Trucking Association chair David Smith.

“Logistics operators are knocking back work and parking trucks because we don’t have enough skilled drivers. Some farmers may even have to stop harvesting until trucks can get on to properties.”

Many of today’s headers will break 50 tonnes an hour, literally filling a road train before a truck can return from dropping the previous load.

The Weekly Times last week reported fears of a looming supply chain crisis that could cost the agriculture industry billions of dollars if damaged rail lines exposed to floods and record rainfall disrupted the movement of harvests from storage facilities to ports.

Victorian Farmers Federation grains council president Ashley Fraser said delays getting harvest off-farm would increase the damage and called on governments to secure an efficient and reliable supply chain network as harvests increase in size.

He also said farmers faced a unique situation where the three eastern seaboard states will harvest simultaneously and, therefore, trucks, drivers and labourers who follow harvests south will still be fulfilling contracts interstate when Victorian farmers require their services.

“Some who thought they had contractors lined up might miss out, they should already be well into harvest up north but they have also had rain delays. The timing is going to be really against us,” he said.

Meanwhile, the current wait for new trucks is stretching into 2025 in some cases, forcing owners to retain machines longer.

This means little new stock is flowing to the used truck markets, where farmers buy their stock, and has dramatically increased the price of that which does.