Fears road network will not be fit to take grain trucks needed to move harvest

Record flooding has led to huge numbers of roads being closed and severe degradation of road surfaces.

Brett Hosking, GrainGrowers chairman, said he feared the true extent of damage to the road network is yet to be established.

"Once the floods go down I would expect we will see a lot more damage and with harvest on the horizon it's going to require some really quick action if we're going to be able to safely move this harvest into the bulk handling system," Mr Hosking said.

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"We've seen the really severe damage where roads have simply been washed away by those strong flood waters, but even in the areas where there has been less flooding we're seeing the moisture create really substantial potholes in the surface which will be incredibly dangerous for grain trucks," he said.

"GrainGrowers is calling on the relevant federal and state authorities to get onto the emergency work required on the road network as a matter of urgency, especially given there are still likely to be large volumes of grain around even after the flooding."

"Within the grains industry we are largely playing the waiting game to see just how bad the impact of the flooding will be in terms of yield and quality losses but these infrastructure works are something that needs to happen now if we're to be able to get the crop off and into storage successfully."

Mr Hosking said the extent of the damage meant it was impossible to have the entire road network mended prior to harvest.

"Unfortunately we're not going to see every road fixed, we might have situations where growers and transporters are forced to take longer routes to get their grain to silos but if we can prioritise the major freight routes that will be a big start."

Justin Everitt, NSW Farmers grains committee chairman and farmer at Howlong, in the southern Riverina, said the road network through much of Australia's grain belt was already in poor condition prior to the rain and the floods had exacerbated the damage.

"What we are seeing now is a culmination of many years of neglect coming home to roost," Mr Everitt said.

"The road network was ordinary beforehand and now it is seriously degraded, it is going to need all hands on deck just to get it to a point where we are able to get grain into the sites," he said.

"The immediate priority in this area is stopping the threat of flooding to homes and sheds and then once it recedes we will get a better idea of the state of the roads."

"Given what we have seen so far I don't expect it is going to be pretty and it will need a lot of work to get them to a state where they are able to withstand a large volume of trucks carrying heavy loads of grain."

Ryan Milgate, Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) grains group member and farmer at Minyip in the Wimmera, said it would take a logistical feat just to have major transport routes in operation.

"In our area in the Wimmera the major damage is the severe potholes but you go further to the east through the Avoca, Loddon and Campaspe river catchments where there have been major floods it has just ripped the roads up," Mr Milgate said.

"This includes some pretty major domestic grain transport routes in moving grain from the Wimmera to places like the Goulburn Valley so you can see there being some pretty big disruptions in getting product from place to place."

He echoed Mr Hosking's calls for urgent work to be carried out.

"The silver lining of all this is that we get a chance to fix problems with the road network that have been neglected for too long and come up with a road freight network that's fit for purpose and safer for all users."