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It's been raining overnight and farms are ringing the backpacker working hostel to cancel the buses.
The hostel's farm work co-ordinator is poring over a large spreadsheet matching workers with farms, bus drivers, and the types of work farmers need completed, such as picking cherry tomatoes, melons, and everything in between.
Backpackers mill around, bored and anxious.
It's another day wasted in their quest to reach the 88 days of farm work they need to qualify for a second year on their Australian working holiday visa.
For some, it's another day deeper into debt and despair, trapped in circumstances that will cost them physically, financially and emotionally.
This is a scene repeated regularly in the major food bowl districts of Australia.
The requirement to qualify for the second year of the working holiday visa is for 88 days of farm work, but the only days that count are the days actually worked.
As a result, backpackers are sometimes spending more than seven months (more than 210 days) in regional and rural Australia trying to find enough work to comply with the visa requirement.
To fulfil that 88-day farm work requirement backpackers are almost entirely dependent on working hostels.
Farmers too are dependent on working hostels who act as labour hire contractors or work with them to provide labour as needed.
Some hostels give backpackers a discount on their accommodation on days when they cannot get work.
Other operators are not so ethical. In fact, some middle men are making a fortune by overcharging for substandard accommodation and gouging back wages from the seasonal workforce.
Danish backpacker Djuro's story is typical. He waited five weeks at a working hostel before his first day of farm work.
Hefty price for work
The deception often begins at recruitment.
Many backpackers are promised immediate farm work via social media usually with a demand for payment in advance in order to secure a bed in a hostel and a job.
But on arrival they're told "you have to wait and there's a list of other backpackers ahead of you".
Hostel accommodation charges apply even when there is no work available.
Payslips from backpackers show hefty deductions of $150 to $210 per week for a bunk bed in a crowded dormitory or caravan and up to $50 per week for transport.
These accommodation charges are inescapable because they're written into labour hire contracts.
Backpackers are forbidden from finding their own way to farms or staying anywhere other than the hostel to access the farm work.
As the charges rack up, many backpackers quickly find themselves owing money to the hostel or labour hire operator.
Sometimes passports and personal property are confiscated as surety against the debt or backpackers just can't afford to leave.
The work is really tough too — hard physical labour often in a punishing climate, where there is a risk of dehydration, illness, workplace injuries and accidents. Safe transport to and from farms is reliant good navigation of country roads.
That's a lot of risk and responsibility placed on young inexperienced shoulders.
Community organisations such as The Salvation Army work with local councils and churches to support temporary workers and host regular events like barbecues to provide a safe welcoming space.
Backpackers aren't alone
Backpackers aren't the only ones trapped in the Australian food bowl either.
Participants in the Australian Government's Seasonal Work Program and even people working illegally — often through deceptive recruitment — on tourist or other visas are also enduring similar exploitation.
Most farms are doing the right thing, paying the right rates and looking after workers. Yet, they may be undercut by the farms engaged in illegal and unethical practices.
If such practices are allowed to flourish, fresh food production will devolve into an industry dependent upon slave-like conditions of its workers.
So what can we do together constructively to change the dynamic?
The Salvation Army's Freedom Partnership and many civil society organisations are calling for greater regulation and oversight of farm work.
We welcome the plans of various state governments to introduce labour hire licensing in the absence of a Commonwealth scheme. However, we still advocate for a national approach.
Accommodation abuses must also be addressed, particularly the gouging back of wages through deductions.
Power to change
In the UK the peak grocery council introduced guidelines for farm worker accommodation to stop overcharging of seasonal farm workers.
Similar guidelines in Australia would introduce a baseline of standards and transparency for hostels and caravan parks that house backpackers and seasonal workers.
The fresh food industry has the power to reduce the vulnerabilities of this crucial workforce.
Australia's standards for quality assurance have given the fresh food industry a strong reputation for providing safe and high quality produce.
Guidelines to regulate pricing and standards of farm work accommodation would go a long way to ensuring safe and fair farm work for all workers including Australian and migrant workers alike.
Australian supermarkets, fresh food suppliers and consumers all need to ask the questions, "Do the workers who harvest this produce have reasonable living conditions? Would we accept these same conditions for ourselves or if our own kids were working overseas?"
Reputational risk down the supply chain is something all industries should pay close attention to, particularly as the Federal Government considers the introduction of a Modern Slavery Act for Australia.
Alison Rahill is the national networks co-ordinator of The Salvation Army's Freedom Partnership to End Modern Slavery.
Topics: rural, immigration, work, farm-labour, australia