I live in the Mildura area we had a Vinyard from 1990/2008 dry fruit for the first 4 years tried to employ local workers no hope
you had to employ people from over seas we had accommodation for them. The big farms employ up to 500 backpackers they
pay a agent to fined the workers if the agent does not pay the back packer the right pay that is not the farmers fault all he won'ts
is the work done, most of the backpackers are very slow workers just example i was helping a neighbour to pick his crop you start
at 7 am morning tea at 10 am he had 3 backpackers working they worked together anyway at morning tea they metioned they had picked 127 bucks between them i had picked 135 on my own, A good picker can pick up to 200 an hour so he wants to be payed by the bucket But the slow mostly back packers wants to be payed by the Hour off the top of my head around $20 hour. The have to get
the backpackers because the locals ( WONT WORK.) And they need works all year round. Most small vinyards summer prune there
Dry fruit now, they have no axsess to backpackers because they have no accommodation. Hope that helps to understand a little.
