WA ag pilots booked out for weeks as farmers turn to skies to tend to soggy paddocks

Farmers desperate to get on waterlogged paddocks to give this season’s bumper crops a boost are “swamping” local pilots with calls, leaving planes and choppers booked out for weeks.

The State’s grain growers are funnelling record amounts of fertiliser on to this year’s mammoth 9 million hectare crop, hoping to make the most of the wettest year in decades and sky-high commodity prices.

But as the rain continues to fall, smashing records that have stood for up to 100 years in some areas, paddocks are now saturated and waterlogged, inaccessible by machinery and even cars.

It has seen farmers turn to the skies for assistance, with agricultural pilots “snowed under” trying to keep up with the demand.

It has laid bare the shortage of pilots in WA, exacerbated by COVID-19 border restrictions and drought-breaking rains in the Eastern States keeping pilots equally busy on the other side of the country.

Wagin-based pilot Terry Freeman, who runs Freeman Aerial Services, has been fielding calls left, right and centre to spread urea for the past six weeks. “I’ve been pretty much swamped with calls and other operators have been calling,” he said.

“Every operator in the Wheatbelt is pretty much snowed under.

“Usually in situations like this you’d get one to three pilots and planes to fly over and help from the Eastern States, but with COVID-19 and it being wet over there — the drought has finally broken — they can’t get in and are busy themselves.”

While he is taking on as much work as he can, the wet weather also has implications on when he can safely fly. He is often getting rained out or grounded due to windy conditions.

With this weather, we’re probably averaging being able to fly three out of seven days — and that would go for everybody.

“We’re seeing a lot of drowned- out crops,” Mr Freeman said.

“Some people are trying to book a month in advance as they know they won’t be able to get a plane.

“They’re just hedging their bets and tentatively booking — we all know that if it dries out, that work will dry up. But we’ll be busy right through with the high commodity prices and huge crops.”

WAFarmers grains section president Mic Fels said he had booked a plane to tend to crops on his Esperance farm this week.

“The weather’s been so terrible — you can’t spray or fly in the rain,” he said.

There’s going to be some dirty paddocks and under-fertilised crops this year. I don’t believe it’s a crisis, but definitely a frustration.

Mr Freeman said if the next couple of years were just as wet, the shortage of pilots would be exacerbated further.