Issues at receival sites have drawn the ire of growers and led to a renewed call for an Australian Competition and Consumer inquiry into the grain supply chain.
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NSW Farmers grains committee chair, Justin Everitt, Brocklesby, said growers had been contacting him with issues such as grading disparity between sites and co-mingling bringing prices down, as well as long turnarounds on sample results.
Mr Everitt grows wheat, canola, barley and lupins on 400 hectares, and has seen these issues first hand.
However, he has said the call for an inquiry is not a call for a witch hunt.
"It gets the hood lifted up and we can see what's running, how it's running, and find out where we can make improvements," he said.
"It's pretty simple. It's not a witch hunt, it's just trying to find the best way forward and see where our bottlenecks are and where things are not working as well as they should and then going out about fixing it.
"It is something we have been wanting for over 12 months - an ACCC investigation in the grain supply chain. This can't come quick enough for farmers.
"We really need to see where the issues are in our grain supply chain that are limiting our returns, that are creating undue stress and this is something that needs to happen as soon as possible."
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Growers in other areas of the state have mirrored Mr Everitt's concerns, saying that receival sites were more inconsistent this year compared to others.
In the state's Central West, some growers were travelling an hour and a half to deliver grain to an exporter rather than deliver to a receival site 20 minutes down the road.
Mr Everitt said he went to see first hand some issues growers were telling him about.
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One such example was growers unable to rely upon tests at one site being the same at the next.
"I had been delivering canola with no dramas at all and then I went out to see what everyone was complaining about at one site and my canola was considered mouldy," he said.
"From calls I have taken from growers, this is a pretty widespread issue.
"This whole inconsistency of testing from site to site, it varies way too much.
"We're relying on people who get a couple of weeks training on how to test grain who may never have seen grain before. A lot of the time they're kids just out of high school and they're deciding what grade your grain is.
"That could mean quite a few thousand dollars over a truckload. I appreciate these people coming in and working in our industry, but there seems to be a lot of pressure put on them to perform tasks that really should be properly supervised.
"A lot of this is visual tests and it's up to the sampler's discretion."
Mr Everitt believes this is especially an issue for growers employing truck drivers to deliver their grain.
"Growers who don't deliver their own grain and are relying on a truck driver are more susceptible to this issue," he said.
Mr Everitt said co-mingling was also a concern.
"When Grain Corp announced it was going to take Can S grade Canola, there was a price drop. Traders will tell you that it coincided with a drop in the futures price," he said.
"But, as a grower, it was very coincidental. It happened the same time that the lower grade was then announced to be co-mingled with good quality canola.
"It came across from a grower's point of view with the impression that the lower quality canola was dragging down the price of the better quality canola, which may or may not be true.
"Sometimes you rock up to the site and you are dumping in the same spot as the blokes with a low quality grade and you sit there and start to think what's going on here?
"I know these sites can't take every grade, but it does frustrate you when you produced a better quality grain and it's getting tucked in with a lower quality.
"You feel a little bit ripped off."
A GrainCorp representative said all employees involved in grain receival were trained to the Grain Trade Australia (GTA) standard and competency tested before being allowed onsite.
They said while they had a lot of returning staff, trying to fill 3000 seasonal, six-week positions each harvest meant there was always going to be new faces on hand.
GTA CEO, Pat O'Shannassy said the receival standards have some subjective assessment and while ever that was the case, especially in a difficult harvest such as this one, there could be disparity.
"It has been a very difficult harvest for everyone in regards to different qualities," he said. "And when it is a difficult harvest like this, there is always some unhappiness around it.
"Reducing that is in everyone's best interest.
"We need to remember that we are all working towards making the grain supply chain as efficient as possible.
"There are processes in place such as re-testing to protect growers in this situation."
When asked about the time involved around re-testing, Mr O'Shannassy said growers could give themselves the capacity to handle the extra time spent on site.
