{"id":570732,"date":"2026-03-28T21:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T21:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/570732\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T21:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T21:29:11","slug":"primary-producers-sell-assets-consider-lay-offs-as-fuel-costs-hit-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/570732\/","title":{"rendered":"Primary producers sell assets, consider lay-offs as fuel costs hit hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

The soaring cost of diesel is already taking its toll on North Coast timber industry stalwart Anthony Dorney.<\/p>\n

Since war in the Middle East broke out on February 28, fuel prices for many primary producers has doubled from about $1.50 a litre to more than $3.<\/p>\n

This week, Mr Dorney made the decision to sell $80,000 worth of cattle to pay for fuel for his Buladelah-based logging, haulage and sawmilling companies.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Anthony Dorney’s fuel costs have doubled. (ABC News: Sophia McCaughan)<\/p>\n

The companies employ 110 people and operate 25 trucks and other equipment.<\/p>\n

He said while he still had 22,000 litres in his own bulk fuel tank, it was hard to know whether to top it up now or wait until it was empty.<\/p>\n

“It’s going up every day still and the supplier said it’s a possibility that it might even reach $4 next week,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Dorney said he would be forced to sell farm machinery and $100,000 worth of cattle if the situation continued.<\/p>\n

“The problem with the timber industry, as soon as your workers get out of bed to go to work, to work in the bush, they’re using diesel, they work all day using diesel,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s just too hard, everyone’s going to start shutting down.”Fishers feeling the pain<\/p>\n

Yamba-based prawn fisher Daniel Toyer said increasing fuel costs would likely force him to lay-off workers and stop trawling.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Prawn fisherman Daniel Toyer says five jobs and his own livelihood are in jeopardy. (Supplied: Daniel Toyer)<\/p>\n

Mr Toyer said his two trawlers followed the prawn catch as far afield as the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.<\/p>\n

He said his fuel costs had jumped from an average of $1,250 a night to $2,150 a night in the past three weeks.<\/p>\n

“It’s concerning, we’ve been going through our numbers this week and we are probably going to have to go back to one boat working with myself only and one crew member,” Mr Toyer said.<\/p>\n

“We are at the point where we are going to have to lay people off if things don’t change.”\"Prawn<\/p>\n

Yamba prawn fisher Daniel Toyer says his trawlers may have to sit idle if costs go much higher. (Supplied: Daniel Toyer)<\/p>\n

No ‘magic wand’<\/p>\n

Rural Financial Counselling Service of New South Wales Northern Region CEO Gary Goldberg said calls were starting to come in from farmers in financial distress due to fuel costs.<\/p>\n

“They are saying, ‘We need help, we are struggling to meet our commitments,'” Mr Goldberg said.<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Gary Goldberg from the NSW Rural Financial Counselling Service says people can help farmers by buying local produce. (Supplied: Gary Goldberg)<\/p>\n

He said the biggest problem for primary producers was the uncertainly around fuel supplies and how high the prices might go.<\/p>\n

He added that farmers were considering the costs associated with getting crops in the ground, the increased cost of fertiliser and freight costs, which had all gone up.<\/p>\n

“It’s right across the industry because to be a farmer you need to be able to run heavy machinery,” Mr Goldberg said.<\/p>\n

“To run heavy machinery you’ve got to have diesel.”<\/p>\n

“Nobody is sure how much diesel is actually available, is coming into the country, and is going to be made available to the rural communities.”<\/p>\n

\"Fuel<\/p>\n

Uncertainly around fuel supply and costs is hurting farmers. (ABC News: Sophia McCaughan)<\/p>\n

Mr Goldberg said his not-for-profit service helped primary producers overcome “decision paralysis” and review their budget and business plan as best they could.<\/p>\n

“We don’t know how long this is going to last,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And it’s a moving target for our clients, and it becomes a moving target for us in where you take the client.<\/p>\n

“We unfortunately don’t have a magic wand to solve the problem, but we can try to give them a little bit of space to manoeuvre.”<\/p>\n

Mr Goldberg said people could assist primary producers by buying local produce to reduce freight costs.<\/p>\n

Andrew Henderson has been named by the federal government to head up the National Food Chain Supply Assessment.<\/p>\n

Mr Henderson said it was vital that allocations of fuel and fertiliser went where they were needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Making sure that those things are synchronised so that farmers can get those crops in the ground so that we don’t find ourselves with a shortfall of feed stock in six months time is very important,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The decisions that are being made right now will have implications and will matter three, six, nine months down the road.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The soaring cost of diesel is already taking its toll on North Coast timber industry stalwart Anthony Dorney.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6634,64,63,99,5517,164,13330,98767,280295],"class_list":{"0":"post-570732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-agriculture","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-diesel","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-farming","15":"tag-fuel-crisis","16":"tag-primary-producers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}