“Whatever happens, this is going to get worse.”
Gavin Scurr, the managing director of Piñata farms, which grows strawberries, raspberries, bananas, pineapples and mangoes across farms in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Tasmania, says he is short of workers “at all of our sites”.
In October, about 1,000 tonnes of strawberries were left to rot across Piñata’s farms in Queensland because there was no one to pick them.
The labour shortage affecting Piñata is symptomatic of a crisis rumbling through Australia’s fruit industry, after border restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic kept backpackers – traditionally the dominant picking workforce – out of the country.
The industry has already counted fruit crop losses worth more than $22m and predicts continued wastage if it can’t secure 26,000 more workers by March.
But it’s not just this year. The immediate crisis points to longer term structural problems in an industry where workers report low wages and underpayment, and large retailers are blamed for driving down farm-gate prices. Retailers in turn say consumers will not wear higher prices.
So what can be done to improve the conditions of those who produce Australia’s summer fix of cheap, abundant, top quality fresh fruit?
Can local workers fill the gap?
Scurr says most locals who have applied for work at his farms find “the reward of getting paid is not sufficient for them to continue with the constant work”.
He says he has inducted and trained several local workers in recent weeks who then left after realising how demanding picking work was.
“Once they get to the field they maybe stayed for five minutes, and then they walk to their cars and drive off.
“The bulk of locals who have come here don’t make it through their first day,” he says, although some workers from the local area who joined during the pandemic have continued working for three months.
Michael Rose, a research fellow at the Australian National University who has studied fruit picking in Australia, says the industry has always relied on people travelling for work.
“This whole idea that Australians are too lazy is a judgmental myth. The reality is that immigrants and mobile labour have long picked our fruit.”
Before the pandemic, two main types of foreigners picked fruit in Australia. Pickers on the government’s seasonal worker program typically come from Pacific countries, with accommodation provided by government-sanctioned growers for guaranteed stints of up to nine months.
Rose says the program is successful because it provides attractive wages, given the cost of living in the pickers’ home countries, as well as certainty for workers that they will be moved to other farms once a harvest ends. Many workers return each year to the same growers, he says.
Some pickers on the program have either remained in Australia throughout the pandemic or have been allowed to enter the country in smaller numbers.
The much larger category is working holidaymakers – often backpackers – who must complete 88 days of regional farm work to extend their visas for a second year. Rose says these workers are generally suitable for shorter harvests of fruit, such as berries, as they aren’t looking for year-round work.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data on the industry’s pre-pandemic workforce shows of the 65,000 harvesters working around the country in 2019, 52,000 were on working holidaymaker visas, while 8,000 were on the seasonal worker program, and only 5,000 were Australian citizens and permanent residents.
Michael Rogers, chief executive of the Australian Fresh Produce Alliance, acknowledges the shortfall of younger, temporary workers and believes government incentives must be made much more specific to target younger, fitter and “adventurous” Australians who are in a position to relocate temporarily.
In the first six weeks of the government’s scheme offering up to $6,000 in accommodation and transport to relocate for picking work, just 253 Australians took advantage of the scheme.
“We’ve got to have an open conversation about this,” Rogers says. “Someone living in Melbourne or Sydney is unlikely to move for any kind of work but particularly for work that is temporary … fruit harvests can be as short as six weeks.
“Even if you’re unemployed, if you’re offered a temporary retail job that’s in your city, it’s a fairly rational decision to take the retail job over moving to pick for a few weeks,” he says, noting it’s unrealistic to expect people to break leases or pay rent in a city while temporarily relocating for harvesting jobs.
The produce alliance, which includes giant Costa Group and other members responsible for half the fruit and vegetable industry’s annual turnover of $9.1bn, is pushing for a new “harvest work visa” to bring in 10,000 foreign workers for shorter harvests and fill the gaps between longer-term seasonal worker program visa holders and the dwindling supply of backpackers completing their regional stints.
Rogers is also exploring virtual reality training sessions in capital cities to prepare potential pickers for the harsh reality of harvesting. He hopes this will help convince those attracted to the type of work and weed out those unprepared to commit to a full harvest.
‘Centrepiece for exploitation’
It seems logical that paying higher wages for fruit picking might help attract more local workers. But unions, growers, industry analysts and the government are at odds over the significance of the role of wages.
This week the Australian Workers’ Union put forward a proposal to secure a $25 an a hour minimum wage for casual pickers after a report it commissioned found workers on some blueberry farms were earning as little as $3 an hour on piece rates – pay based on how much they pick.
The report savaged the rise of labour-hire firms in supplying harvest workers to farms, with the national secretary of the AWU, Daniel Walton, describing the industry as the “centrepiece for exploitation in this country”.
The union’s proposal would still allow employers to pay piece rates but only if the amount earned exceeds the proposed minimum of $25 an hour.
On Wednesday, the agriculture minister, David Littleproud, said he was “not against what [the AWU] are putting forward” but criticised the union’s legal push for allegedly misrepresenting how widespread underpayment is, and suggested its tone might discourage Australians from picking fruit.
“They’re generalising the fact that there is a minority that have cut corners and have done the wrong thing and they should be weeded out; they are a cancer within agriculture that need to be weeded out,” Littleproud told Sky News.
Earlier, he told Guardian Australia “seasonal workers can make very good money under the existing award rates that farmers are legally required to pay”.
Lower prices come at a cost
Asked about the relationship between supermarket prices and the true cost of fruit production, Littleproud said he’d “long been concerned about how supermarkets wield their significant market power and of course I support any measure that delivers a fairer and better farm-gate price back to our farmers”.
Questions about supply chain pressures on fruit prices were raised by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission last week.
The report it issued after a three-month inquiry into perishable agricultural goods recommended new fair trading laws to address harmful practices arising from bargaining power imbalances.
Specifically, the report found “some suppliers who seek a cost increase from a supermarket” risk “commercial retribution”.
The ACCC’s deputy chair, Mick Keogh, told Guardian Australia farmers’ limited ability to demand higher prices from supermarkets, to reflect the true cost of harvesting, affected the wages they could pay.
“A farmer can’t say ‘look, $6 a box for these apples just isn’t covering my wage bill, I’m going to need $8’ … They’re not in a position to say that,” he said.
“Your apples are perishable and once they’re picked you’re at your weakest position … If you need to move your produce you take what the market is offering.”
Keogh said that throughout the inquiry there had been multiple examples of fruit suppliers who had direct contracts with supermarkets (as opposed to selling to wholesalers at markets) and reported “absolutely reprehensible behaviour”.
“The supermarket might contract a supplier for 100 tonnes of whatever, and they bargain them to their lowest possible prices. The supplier agrees but then the supermarket turns around and says they’ve changed their minds and only want half the order but still want to pay the same lower price.
“What choice do you have as a supplier in that situation? You’ve got 100 tonnes of perishable produce you need to get rid of. It’s tough to say no.”
Woolworths, Coles and Aldi all say they strive for certainty and fairness for their suppliers.
A Woolworths spokesman said “we’re open to contributing to sensible, fit-for-purpose policy development if it can help provide greater certainty to suppliers”.
A Coles spokeswoman said the company was “committed to dealing fairly with our suppliers” and Aldi said it “enjoys strong, long term partnerships with its suppliers that drive value for both parties”. An Aldi spokesman said there was no evidence supermarkets’ bargaining power was negatively affecting picking wages.
Michael Rogers, from the produce alliance, says there is one further element influencing prices that is hard to shift – the fruit-buying public.
“Consumers see fruit and vegetables as a necessity so there’s real price sensitivity,” he says.
Raising prices might just have the effect of reducing sales, he argues.
“Consumers expect fruit and vegetables to be cheap.”