MANANGATANG farmer and Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) grains councillor for Northern Mallee Chris Plant is concerned about roads not being gazetted, even while the harvest is in full swing.
“The Robinvale-Sea Lake Road has not been gazetted for High Performance Vehicles (HPVs) and won’t be, until it gets upgraded,” she said.
“After the Manangatang VFF organised a rally to protest against the 80km per hour speed limit in September 2019, the State Government provided funds for immediate repairs so that speed limits could revert back to 100km per hour.
“Since then, the State Government has allocated another $10 million, and the Federal Government have committed $4.28 million – but at this stage, the money hasn’t been spent.”
Ms Plant works on her farm with her husband Keith, her son Brad and her sister-in-law Donna.
They grow wheat, barley, lentils, chickpeas and oaten hay.
They store all their grain at the farm in silo bags at the paddock, or at silos at the farm, and outload grain throughout the year, depending on prices.
“Most of our grain is trucked out in B-Doubles, but cost efficiencies could be obtained if High Performance Vehicles (HPVs), such as roadtrains, could be used if there were roads gazetted by VicRoads.”
Ms Plant used the example of her grain being freighted into NSW to highlight the problems with roads not being suitable for HPVs.
“Robinvale bridge is gazetted, but not Robinvale-Sea Lake Road,” she said.
“Mallee Highway is gazetted, but not Tooleybuc bridge.
“So, we have a road without a bridge, and a bridge without a road!”
“Without gazetted roads, a roadtrain coming into our farm would either have to uncouple at Tooleybuc, bring one trailer across the bridge to our farm to load, return to Tooleybuc and bring a second trailer to load, and then couple up again, resulting in an extra 118km.
“Or, they would cross at Robinvale, and drive out to Piangil or Ouyen, which is an extra 160km, on the way back to the farm.
“Either way it’s extra fuel and freight costs, extra wear and tear on our roads, and extra labour.”
Like many other farmers, Ms Plant is participating in a road freight study, being conducted by the Victorian Department of Transport, in conjunction with the Swan Hill Rural City Council and Gannawarra Shire Council.
The study is looking for input from stakeholders about any current problems being encountered, any opportunities to take advantage of, or any emerging changes within their industry which may affect future road investments, such as fleet changes.
The State Government contributed $50,000 to the project, to find evidence for further investment into expanded HPVs access for local roads.
However, Ms Plant would also like more funds by local and state government agencies for regular road maintenance, describing them as being “in a very poor state”.
“Many local roads are too narrow to even move large, modern agricultural machinery to safety due to canopies growing over them,” Ms Plant said.
“And of course we still need to make considerations for the many trucks on our roads, due to the incompletion of the Murray Basin Rail Project.”
