Truck driver shortages and weather hit Mossman Sugar Mill’s crushing targets

CRUSHING DOWN

David Gardiner

Journalist

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Far Northern Milling at Mossman might have to hire overseas workers to fill shortages.

Mossman Sugar Mill’s crushing target for this season is down, the result of a truck driver shortage and weather conditions already impacting on the tonnage of cane able to be hauled to the mill.

The total crush this year, with further unfavourable weather being forecast due to a recurrence of the La Nina weather pattern, is expected to be down by 10-20 per cent.

Out of its operational fleet of 14 trucks – the lack of drivers and a general labour shortage across the sugar industry has meant that four trucks are parked idle on each of the mill’s three shifts over 24 hours.

“We would immediately need 12 drivers just to fill the transport rosters,” Far Northern Milling’s chief executive Bronwyn Dwyer told Newsport.

“We’re also down 15 people in the mill; shift supervisors and tradespeople included.”

The mill has already well exceeded its budget for wet weather downtime and forecasts show that there’s more rain on the way before crushing season ends.

It is highly likely that some cane, particularly from the Tablelands, will be ‘stood over’, meaning it will not be harvested and miss out on the good current fetching price of around $580 a tonne.

Skilled sugar industry labour to be sought from overseas

Ms Dwyer said the grower-owned mill, where normally 150 people are employed during the season, is strongly considering hiring overseas skilled sugar industry workers beyond this season, for which new seasonal visa agreements would most likely have to be put in place.

“Brazil is an example of where we might be able to get skilled workers from because their season is opposite to ours,” Ms Dwyer said.

“Our transport contractor LMS is looking at hiring overseas as an option for next year’s season.”

The mill crushes 780,000 tonnes of cane a year, generating more than $75m of direct input into the economy per annum; and the equivalent of 570 full-time jobs are supported by the mill.

Four out of 14 trucks per shift remain idle due to not enough drivers.

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