Goulburn Valley farmers desperate to source rapid antigen tests for workers have jumped at the chance to join in a bulk order of more than 56,000 kits, as the spread of COVID-19 wreaks havoc on harvests and deliveries.
Just a fortnight ago, leaders from Victorian Farmers Federation, Food and Fibre Gippsland and Fruit Growers Victoria held an urgent meeting to discuss the idea of sourcing RAT kits for their members to buy.
“We started to really see big shortages of food on shelves — basically market failure,” VFF chief executive Jane Lovell said.
Outbreaks among farm and distribution workers are a major contributing factor.
If an essential worker such as a fruit picker tests positive to COVID-19, anyone they live with is considered a close contact; however, if those workers who reside with a positive case test negative with a RAT every morning they are permitted to work.
“If one person gets COVID-19, others are still allowed to go to work as long as they do a rapid antigen test every day for five days,” Ms Lovell said.
“So that helps free up labour, particularly if you've got a bunch of backpackers or pickers — people that have come in all sharing accommodation.”
Ms Lovell said the Victorian Government did not offer assistance supplying test kits when asked.
“Food is an essential service ... you don't go for long without food,” she said.
“We actually asked for help, but we couldn't get it. So we went, ‘Look, we just have to do this ourselves’.”
Ms Lovell said the VFF had been predicting the current supply chain crisis since October 2021.
“We were pretty disappointed that we didn’t get any real traction with the state government,” Ms Lovell said.
Fruit Growers Victoria business development manager Leanne Johansson said supplying the RATs could mean the difference between a successful harvest or seeing fruit rot on trees.
“One grower tested their team of 40 workers — of those, seven tested positive with symptoms, 13 were positive with no symptoms, and the remaining 20 workers were in mandatory isolation as close contacts,” Ms Johansson said.
“Pear and apple season starts this week and we’re seeing strong demand (for RATs) from Goulburn Valley growers.”
The plan to deliver tens of thousands of tests came to fruition two short weeks later.
Members of the groups had just 48 hours to respond to a survey with their orders and in that time more than 600 employers took up the offer, ordering more than 56,000 tests in total.
The next challenge is distributing the tests, which arrived in Mooroopna on Monday morning, ready to be delivered to 21 pick-up points across the state from Tuesday.
Ms Lovell said getting the bulk order down from Sydney was a “very stressful weekend”, and she and the organising team had multiple back-up plans should the supply chain be disrupted like so many have been in recent weeks.
Orders were offered to purchasers at a fair price, with a small fee added to cover distribution costs, and Mobil donated the fuel needed to dispense the orders.
On Monday, delivery vans were filled at Fruit Growers Victoria in Mooroopna, ready to deliver the sought-after RATs to Cobram, Echuca, Bendigo, Benalla, Wodonga and further afield.
“Most of the orders are coming from this area,” Ms Lovell said.
“I think the big users are hort (horticulture) and dairy.”
Ms Lovell said pandemic-induced worker shortages predated the current outbreak and were the root of the problem.
“Every worker, every potential worker, is absolutely critical to the industry at the moment,” she said.
“We've got the highest sensitivity tests here to get out to people who are in that situation so they can keep the workforce coming through.”