More than 56,000 Rapid Antigen Tests are on the way to Victorian farmers as part of a joint initiative by the Victorian Farmers Federation, Food and Fibre Gippsland and Fruit Growers Victoria, to help minimise disruption to supply chains .
VFF President Emma Germano said the overwhelming response from people received within 48 hours, highlighted the critical need and demand for RATs in the community.
She said the state government's response had been an afterthought.
"Our industry, as well as many others have been crying out for RATs for months," Ms Germano said.
"We decided to get on the front foot and secure a supply of tests ourselves."
Farmers and industry had been telling the government that without access to RATs, the new isolation directives intended to ease the pressure on our supply chains, wouldn't
"The response has been enormous," Ms Germano said.
"We've had over 56,000 orders within two days from literally every corner of Victoria."
Ms Germano said the effort to initially secure and quickly distribute the orders demonstrated the willingness to work together.
"In two weeks, the tests have landed in Sydney, been driven down to Victoria and distributed out to 24 towns across the State.
"We've dubbed it the 'rat race'."
The VFF, Food and Fibre Gippsland and FGV collaborated together to secure the supply of RATs from HiCraft Safety.
Ms Germano said orders had been offered to purchasers at a fair price, with a small fee added to cover distribution costs.
Earlier, she said it had been made "abundantly clear" that the agricultural sector would not be prioritised by the Victorian government in its supply of RATs.
"We have heaps of members and farmers calling us saying they would love to be able to use the new isolation directives, but there is no availability of RATs anywhere," Ms Germano said.
"To gain an understanding of the demand we thought we were only going to work this out if we tried to procure the RATs ourselves."
The state government has ordered 44 million RATs, to distribute to key workers.
The government said workers in sensitive settings and essential workforces would be prioritised to receive the RATs, as part of the initial rollout.
That incuded essential workers in the health system, emergency services, and disability and aged care services.
Under national definitions, introduced last month, a person is considered a close contact if he or she has spent four hours or more with a confirmed case in a household or household-like setting, such as a residential care facility.
A positive RAT has the same status as that of a PCR test.
Ms Germano said last week the group would 'order as many tests as have been ordered from us'.
She said before opening up the call for expressions of interests, 25,000 tests had already been ordered by VFF members alone.
She remained sceptical about government claims it was not requisitioning RAT cassettes, being brought into the country by private industry.
"There is a lot of evidence to the contrary, " Ms Germano said.
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The government said widespread reporting that supplies of kits being redirected to the Commonwealth Department of Health were untrue.
The Department of Health reaffirmed it had not requisitioned all RAT supplies within and entering Australia.
The Department had made purchases in accordance with Commonwealth Procurement Rules, and had not sought to place itself ahead of other commercial and retail entities.
The Australian Government had secured more than 80 million RATs for delivery in January and February.
State and territory governments also advised that they have placed orders for approximately 130 million RATs.
Ms Germano said the arrival of the tests would give the VFF a better understanding as to how they would flow through the supply chain, before being distributed.
Members from all sectors of agriculture were calling for the test.
"It's been all different types of growers who have been calling us and telling us about how they have really struggled."
She said the VFF would like to acknowledge Mobil for donating the fuel needed to dispense the orders throughout Victoria and extend a huge thanks to everyone involved in the initiative.