OBTAINING road train access for the Mallee Highway is of paramount importance, according to Geranium farmer Adam Morgan.
He called on the government to upgrade sections to allow road trains to run on the highway to reduce the number of heavy vehicles required to transport the region's produce.
"The Mallee Highway is not that flash, but it's still better than a lot of roads in the state, especially on the Eyre Peninsula, but we still can't run a road train down it," he said.
"Allowing bigger trucks means less truck movements."
With many growers in the Mallee finding it cost-effective to deliver straight to Tailem Bend, Adam believes smaller sites will increasingly be used on a demand-basis.
"In big years, I'd expect most of them to be utilised, but I think we'll see more and more of them closed in the lean years," he said.
"For those of us within the 50 kilometre to 100km range from Tailem Bend, it's been much more cost-effective for us to run it through to Tailem Bend anyway than any of the sites like Peake, Geranium - which hasn't opened for the last couple of years - or Karoonda.
"There's grain from as far out as Murrayville, Vic, coming direct through to Tailem Bend. As soon as the season has a bit of a tough finish, people will cart as long as they can - as long as they get enough turnaround to keep the grain away from the header."
The Morgan family - Adam's parents David and Pam, his wife Tanja and brother Daniel - have placed an emphasis on expanding their grain sales avenues in recent years, increasing the amount of grain they sell domestically.
