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Covid Victoria: GrainCorp, CBH safeguard operations for a bumper harvest

GrainCorp and CBH reveal how they are safeguarding their operations to bring in this year’s bumper harvest.

Grain supply chains are already being tested by coronavirus cases as the harvest gets underway.
Grain supply chains are already being tested by coronavirus cases as the harvest gets underway.

The coronavirus pandemic has already begun to test the grains supply chain as this year’s bumper harvest gets underway.

GrainCorp, which employs more than 3000 people on sites from Queensland to Victoria, last week had its first instance of a Covid positive case attending a worksite in a community in Northern NSW, GrainCorp general manager of operations Nigel Lotz said.

Mr Lotz said the case showed GrainCorp had systems in place to respond effectively to positive Covid cases, but the company was bracing to manage more cases as it races to bring in the harvest.

“We’d be naive to sit here and think that everything’s going to be perfectly an easy harvest like it was last year,” Mr Lotz said.

“We had one positive case in a local community. It highlighted how challenging things are in these remote regional areas.”

“Localised testing services there were put under a huge amount of pressure,” he said. Staff were sent into isolation and the company was able to bring in another shift crew to get the site running again once it had been cleaned.

To manage the risk of the virus spreading, GrainCorp was actively gathering vaccination records for all staff, but was only mandating vaccination in Victoria as per state government requirements, he said.

Western Australian grain handler CBH was also ramping up its staff vaccination efforts last week, offering an incentive of $100 per staff member to get vaccinated.

A staff survey last month revealed 79 per cent of CBH staff were on track to get fully vaccinated. CBH acting chief executive Ben Macnamara said the company hoped to increase its vaccination numbers without a mandate.

“There is no denying that a Covid-19 outbreak of the Delta strain in Western Australia would have serious implications for our people, growers, our business and our supply chain,” Mr Macnamara said.

“Having a vaccinated workforce will not only safeguard our people against the virus but will also protect growers and hopefully encourage people in communities to get vaccinated if they haven’t already.

Viterra, which manages more than 2000 staff across sites in Victoria and South Australia, was also putting measures in place to protect its supply chain.

A Viterra spokeswoman declined to say how many of its workers were vaccinated but said the company will be running double shifts at key sites during harvest to split its workforce into groups to minimise risk.

The company was also applying staff travel restrictions and has adopted a QR code check-in system, the spokeswoman said.

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Original URL: https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/cropping/no-one-wants-their-site-shut-down-grain-companies-preparing-to-bring-in-a-bumper-harvest-during-a-pandemic/news-story/5aee614f68e1063cb63363b83485f4e5