Originally published by Rhianna Mitchell of The West Australian
27.03.2026
WA farmers are being pushed to the brink by a catastrophic double whammy of soaring costs and acute shortages of fertiliser and fuel, prompting warnings of mass food shortages and price hikes.
Growers and industry leaders say they are becoming more concerned by the day about the disastrous impact it will have on produce like bananas, vegetables, grain, meat and dairy, as well as their own livelihoods.
The crisis threatens to derail WA’s predicted $7 billion harvest — in what has been labelled a “Wheatbelt recession” — with thousands of grain growers at risk of running out of their most crucial inputs, fuel and fertiliser, half way into their seeding program.
In Carnarvon, banana growers already reeling after Cyclone Mitchell wiped out 50 per cent of fruit last month have warned of unprecedented and unsustainable costs which will flow on to fruit prices.
And one quarter of WA’s vegetable growers have stopped planting amid uncertainty around fuel, fertiliser and crucial Middle East export markets.
Growers and industry leaders say the alarming state of play will lead to food shortages and increased prices, and have urged WA consumers to continue to support local producers.
There’s a lot of worried people . . . the level of panic and concern is escalating rapidly.
The timing of the Middle East turmoil could not be worse for crop farmers, who will start seeding in the coming days.
This weekend’s forecast rainfall would have created the “perfect start”, according to WAFarmers Federation chief executive Trevor Whittington, but instead growers were facing stress and uncertainty.
“There’s a lot of worried people . . . the level of panic and concern is escalating rapidly,” he told The West Australian.
“There’s a flow on effect, no one is buying machinery, people aren’t fixing gear. It affects towns, the service industries, the truckies, the stockies, the people who work in the stores. It’s all slowed down, it’s like a Wheatbelt recession has started.
“Everything’s stopped, because no one knows how the year is going to end up.”
The impact would flow through to food prices, Mr Whittington said, in particularly meat and dairy.
Mr Whittington estimated most farms were running at between one third to half of the fuel needed for this season.
But without fertiliser, which it is feared could runout within weeks, this year’s harvest would be doomed.
Premier Roger Cook expressed concern over the worsening shortages yesterday.
“A significant proportion of our fertiliser comes from the Middle East, those supply chains have been shot to pieces,” Mr Cook said.
Australia relies heavily on imported urea – the nitrogen fertiliser used by farmers – and most of it moves through the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively been closed by Iran.
As a result the price of urea has jumped by 50 per cent to US$600 a tonne in the past month, which Mr Whittington said equated to a $1400 per tonne on-farm price.
But supply remains the biggest concern.
“There is effectively no new stock available for April seeding. If you can’t get (urea), you might as well not plant your crop . . . instead of averaging three tonnes per hectare, you average one tonne without it,” Mr Whittington said.
“You might as well park it up. Decisions will be made on how many of the 10 million hectares that normally get planted will be dropped and not planted this year.”
WAFarmers wrote to the Federal Government this week, calling on it to fast track urea imports from smaller manufacturers such as Vietnam and Oman.
York brothers Erin and Adrian Emin started seeding this week. They hope to plant 8000 hectares of canola, barley, wheat and oats but only have enough fuel to get through half of their program.
“You can make a start but without nitrogen and without diesel it’s hard to grow a crop, the concern is just how far you get get,” Erin said.
“It’s the uncertainty; we’ve got bills to pay off and you’re trying to make plans but you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Adrian said the cost of production had at least doubled in recent weeks.
“It comes into whether we plant our whole crop, or just plant half. If we didn’t have debt, we would sit the year out,” he said.
Diesel prices now exceed $3 a litre in WA, up from $1.80 one month ago.
Vegetables WA chief executive Peter Spackman said about 25 per cent of producers had stopped planting due to the uncertainty and cost.
He knew of some farmers who were driving into Perth, filling up their petrol tanks and then syphoning the fuel into farm machinery.
“It’s impacting so many areas in so many ways, with the increased cost of production you are going to see an increase in prices down the track, you’ll see it everywhere, fast food outlets, restaurants, it’s going to affect everyone.”
Family run Patane Produce in WA’s south exports 50 per cent of its vegetables and currently has thousands of dollars of produce sitting on three carriers in the Arabian Gulf.
Pennie Patane said they stood to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, including thousands in extra fees charged by shipping companies in recent days.
“The stress levels are heightened and we have no idea where the food is going to go. The Middle East is our biggest market and that’s disappeared,” she said.
“It’s very serious.
The Carnarvon Sweeter Banana Co-operative business manager Doriana Mangili said the industry was under siege.
“If there was a year not to be in business, this was it. Things are really tricky, my inbox is filled with emails every day from suppliers adding levies and increases,” she said.
“I’ve never seeing anything like it. It’s unsustainable, it’s going to get to the point that, who is going to be able to afford to buy produce if we pass those costs on, and farmers can’t afford to wear the costs are margins are already so thin.”
Almost half of the town’s bananas were lost in Cyclone Mitchell earlier this year, so Ms Mangili expected prices to go up and supply to go down.
Mr Whittington said the crisis had been exacerbated by the Commonwealth’s failure to meet an obligation to hold 90 days’ worth of oil in reserve, in the event of global disruption.
Australia’s reserves sit at one third of the amount mandated by the International Energy Agency.
“WA burns through roughly 21 million litres of fuel every day . . . yet we maintain reserves that barely last a month,” he said.
A spokesman for the Federal Government said they were working “day and night with our farmers and producers to help manage the impacts of the conflict in the Middle East.”
“We have established a cross-agency working group to monitor the supply of critical inputs, including fertiliser, and we are working with industry to help farmers and producers get the fertiliser they need,” they said.
