Farmers face weeks-long wait amid panic buying in Perth
Western Australian farmers are facing waits of up to three weeks to get refueling due to panic buying in the metropolitan area.
From potato farmers in Manjimup to grain farmers near York, fuel shortages in regions can have a direct impact on the planting and harvesting of a variety of crops.
Potato farmer Dom Dellavedova has about 10 days of fuel left before he has to stop harvest production.
“ [fuel] The tank is 10,000 liters, I have about 3000 liters left. Most of the irrigation is done with diesel engines. Dellavedova told this imprint: “We get through this pretty easily in 10 days.
“Down [south] This is arguably Western Australia’s largest horticultural region. You’ve got avocados, you’ve got potatoes, you’ve got apples, you’ve got just about everything. All require watering.
“Now, the worrying thing about all this is that if fuel is cut off or delayed, that’s going to have a huge impact on us, it’s going to have an impact on grain growers.”
The lack of fuel also affects the delivery of goods to supermarket shelves, Dellavedova said.
“Even though everything seems fine right now, looking down the road in this void where nothing is coming makes me anxious,” he said.
Similarly, grain farmer Nick Emin faces major impacts to crop yields if fuel flows to his family farm in the Wheat Belt do not improve.
“We farm west of York, about an hour east of Midland. It’s a 900ha pure crop farm and we grow canola and barley. So we’re in full swing at this time of year on paddock preparation and getting our machines ready for planting, which will start in about four to five weeks,” he said.
Emin was told he too would face a three-week wait before he could access normal fuel supplies.
“We have received very good communication from our wholesaler and they have said that the major refineries are restricting their sales to wholesalers in order to retain diesel metro,” he said.
“At the beginning of the week [we were told] ‘there is no fuel and you cannot order’. A limited amount has now been released to our wholesaler but he has had to limit it to 4000 liters per farm until we can reach everyone and try to go a little further.
“But once its levels reach a certain target, it has to stop delivering again so it can remain in emergency rooms.”
How far does 4000 liters go on a 900 hectare farm? Emin said it would only take 4-5 days.
“Our diesel consumption naturally increases at this time of year, but not being able to achieve this means that many of the preparatory activities we do have to either slow down or we cannot do them at all,” he said.
“If we get a limited amount of diesel, that means the work we were trying to do in four to five weeks has to be done in less time, which doesn’t really help people when it comes to stress and anxiety.”
Both men wanted to dispel the misconception that farmers were panic-buying fuel.
“Farmers can only store so much in their warehouses. So most of the panic buying seems to be coming from the metro area, and agriculture as an industry seems to have taken a backseat to try to maintain metro inventory levels,” Emin said.
“There is a lot of misinformation out there that growers are causing these problems by stockpiling fuel.
“But this figure fell at a time when growers were already stocking up in preparation for seeding.”
During Wednesday’s federal parliamentary question session, National O’Connor MP Rick Wilson said farmers were “not panicking” and were instead being “cautious”.
“Now [Energy Minister Chris Bowen] it says inside My Father’s Army…As Corporal Jones put it, ‘Don’t panic, don’t panic,’ but these farmers aren’t panicking, they’re just being cautious,” Wilson said.
“They were told that the fuel they needed to get the potatoes out of the ground and onto the supermarket shelves would not be available.”
Farmers who produced 27.2 million tons of grain in the last harvest also face the risk of disaster due to the lack of available fuel, Wilson said.
“There are a lot of things going on in large acre wheat fields that require a lot of diesel. They’re spreading lime, they’re doing summer spraying, stubble rolling is happening, and they’ll start dry stitching at the end of the month,” he said.
“If they can’t start sewing at the right time, it will have a catastrophic effect on yields at the end of the year.”
Ministers have sought to reassure Perth motorists that they won’t run out of fuel and there is no need to panic.
“All contracts are being filled, they are being filled with 100 percent certainty. But where the disruption is happening is where people are panic buying or stockpiling fuel,” Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said Tuesday.
Western Australian Premier Roger Cook will hold a fuel security roundtable on Wednesday afternoon to hear from fuel industry representatives and key sectors on the potential impacts of conflict in the Middle East.
The roundtable will be held at Dumas House with state government ministers and WA industry leaders in attendance.
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