Resilience, strength, and adaptability are words that can be used to describe both Australian Defence Service men and women and Australian farmers. Veterans of all ages have already made a great contribution to our nation; their selfless service is the stuff of legends, the farming industry work tirelessly to feed the world in challenging physical, environmental and economic situations.
During the 2021 COVID-19 pandemic – the state-to-state and international hard border restrictions, isolation rules and the effects of infection were catalysts for a chronic skills shortage across many industries. The Australian grains sector, an approximately $14 billon industry were facing a potential failure to harvest and market a percentage of their product due to an inability to mobilise and utilise specialty harvesting equipment during the short window available to complete the essential operation.
Grain harvesting is undertaken in a relatively short timeframe at the end of the lifecyle of the plants. Grains must be removed within the harvest window to ensure the product is commercially viable, maintains certain quality parameters, and to ensure limited grain losses due to weather conditions and other uncontrollable aspects are minimised. Once grains fall from the plant – there is no economical option to pick them up again and they are lost to the market, and to the bottom-line of farmers already facing the challenges of rising input costs such as fuel and fertiliser.
In response to the looming crisis in 2021, Operation Grain Harvest Assist was developed by former ADF members acting as volunteers to facilitate the connection of former ADF servicemen and women to farmers, contract harvesters and grain supply chain businesses and to assist in the mobilisation of the workforce to support the national grain harvest.
Following the success of the program a collaborative effort between O’Connors – Australia largest Case IH machinery dealership, Longerenong Agricultural College and Operation Grain Harvest is underway to provide Australian Defence Force (ADF) veterans with the technical knowledge and training required to make the move from military vehicles to harvesting equipment to support grain producers across Australia during the 2022 Harvest.
“We know that there is a challenge to bring in the bumper grain harvest expected within Australia this year; with Australia’s resilient, strong, and adaptable Veterans” explained Garry Spencer, the National Facilitator of Operation Grain Harvest Assist “In 2021, we were able to support the Nation’s grain growers. with about 250-300 Veterans at farms right across the country; now we are delighted to be assisting again in 2022, helping ensure an even higher standard of support by providing this training program.”
“We hope to build on this outstanding teamwork and strong support from O’Connors and Longerenong College to expand the training provided in future years.”
Even more importantly, to leverage this training, to open career opportunities for our highly capable Veterans, within the very productive and internationally important Australian Grains Industry. This is a mission to which we are fully committed!”
Each organisation will play a key role in the development and delivery of a training course focused on harvest machinery to ADF Veterans to enhance their skills and ability to contribute to the 2022 Harvest.
The 3-day training course was recently conducted at Longerenong College during the normal college term break with veterans from three states receiving dedicated hands-on training using machinery supplied by O’Connors. The intensive week-long training at the college involved classroom theory on machinery and broad-acre farm production, combine harvester simulator training, technical information and hands-on learning and driver training in the two Case IH Axial-Flow combines provided by O’Connors Case IH, and two local farm visits.
O’Connors are the largest Australian distributor of Case IH farm equipment, operating 15 branches in 3 States. They have a solid and strong reputation within the farming community and have been operating for over 55 years.
David Hair, Executive Senior Sales Manager at O’Connors was integral in the program delivery, assisted in the development and delivery of the training program at Longerenong, while simultaneously organising equipment and resources from within O’Connors, and sourcing external funding from their product partners. “O’Connors are proud to provide support to the Operation Grain Harvest Assist program. This initiative will provide support not only to our returned service men and women but to Australian farmers now and into the future. It is a program that our organisation will continue to provide significant resources to, and we hope to see it become a long-term legacy into the future” he said.
“Longerenong Agricultural College have been training both grain growers and agronomists for the national farm sector since 1891” he explained “it is located just outside Horsham in the lovely Wimmera area and is well respected and strongly supported by O’Connors, the Victorian farming community and the local families and community in Horsham.”
Operation Grain Harvest Assist will facilitate the connection between the program participants and the businesses seeking staff, the participating veterans will be provided the opportunity to be paid for their work on the farm, many effectively doubling their Defence Pension in the process.
Alongside O’Connors, Case IH, MacDon Australia, Manitou Australia, Muddy River Agricultural and Waringa Enterprises also offered financial support. Case IH General Manager, Pete McCann, said it was exciting to see what had been achieved and the potential for the agriculture industry going forward.
“Operation Grain Harvest Assist helps provide new paths for our returned service men and women, to whom our nation owes so much, and it’s also important to Case IH to support an initiative that can help Australian farmers meet their labour needs and increase the staffing pool for the agriculture sector, which, like so many industries at present, is struggling to find the number of workers it needs,” Pete said.
The veterans come from all three of the Australian Defence Services, many having had overseas operational deployment; they have offered their services through the Operation Grain Harvest Assist program which is nationally run by Veteran volunteers.
Moving forward O’Connors, and all other partners are committed to seeing the pilot develop into an ongoing and successful program, with higher intakes and continued successful outcomes.