Migration fix needed for food supply chain labour shortages

The Federal Government has been urged to prioritise fixing the food supply chain’s labour shortage crisis, with fears limited progress may cost consumers during their weekly shop.

The National Food Supply Chain Alliance — which represents more than 160,000 businesses with a revenue of $200 billion — calculated last year that the food supply chain was short at least 172,000 workers, from paddock to plate.

The Alliance includes the National Farmers’ Federation, the Australian Meat Industry Council, Independent Food Distributors Australia and AUSVEG.

IFDA chief executive Richard Forbes said the Government should develop a National Food Supply Chain Resilience Strategy “as a matter of urgency”, to reduce the impact of the multiple long-term disruptors from natural disasters to future global challenges.

“Farmers, food suppliers, distributors, independent supermarkets, grocers, butchers, food processors and hospitality are all sending a united message — if you want a stronger economy, just add workers,” Mr Forbes said.

“With almost 80 per cent of Australians concerned about the price of food, labour shortages are, from a ‘cost of business’ perspective, one of the contributing factors to food price increases to the consumer, as well as the ability to process and move food along the supply chain.”

Mr Forbes said the peak industry bodies agreed that the food supply chain urgently required a suite of solutions, including reducing barriers to work and providing suitable visa pathways to welcome overseas workers.

“This should include a greater focus on ASEAN countries for schemes which service the sector,” he said.

“The Alliance believes that food price inflation — which is as high as 15 per cent in some categories in the most recent data — is one of the few ‘cost of living’ pressures the Government can influence.

“This can be done by working constructively with industry to stabilise the myriad ever-increasing input costs.”

Labour shortages, energy prices, increasing wages, fuel and supply chain disruptions are all issues negatively impacting the supply chain.

“This impacts business and ultimately, the prices paid at the checkout,” Mr Forbes said.