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Are migration rules hitting supermarket shelf prices?

Supermarkets won’t say whether labour shortages in Australian farms are going to push up shelf prices and worsen food shortages.

Supermarket in Melbourne. The National Farmers’ Federation’s Mike Guerin told reporters yesterday that farms were already running short of backpackers to help with the harvest and Labor’s reforms would only worsen that. Guerin said:

double quotation mark We will see a lift in the price of food. We will see emptier supermarkets. The food insecurity being built into the system right now by the inability of family farms to go about their business in the normal way is breathtaking. And while it’s yet to play out directly for consumers, for people in the cities, it’s very close. We will not be able to finish the harvest this year, before Christmas …