Seasonal farm work deserves a better platform.
We built Good Yakka because Australian farmers and seasonal workers deserve better than Facebook groups, crossed fingers, and a system that’s been broken for years. Farmers can’t find reliable workers. Workers can’t find safe, fair gigs?gigsJobs. Shifts. Paid work.. We dug into the problem — and built the platform that fixes it.
A proper dive into the industry
Good Yakka was born out of Monash’s Fastrack program — one of Australia’s best university entrepreneurship programs where students actually get their hands dirty. A semester out in the real world, finding real problems, working out how to fix them. Then a semester flat out prototyping, marketing, and getting in front of customers.
Our focus was on the Australian agriculture industry. We chatted to farmers, interviewed seasonal workers, dug into the data, and mapped out exactly where the system was falling apart. What we found wasn’t pretty — but it was bloody clear. Serious, fixable problems. Nobody building the right tools to sort them. When the government shut down the Harvest Trail service in June 2024, it left farmers with even less support — and confirmed there was a real gap worth filling.
“We wanted to be the platform farmers discover and say: ‘Bloody hell, why haven’t we been using this forever?’”
The system was broken
Farmers can’t find enough workers
Australia’s farm workforce shrank 10.3% from 2024 to 2025, with hours worked in 2025 at their lowest since records began in 1984. 65% of larger agribusinesses rate their worker shortage as challenging to severe, whereas for small to medium companies the figure is 86%. Most still rely on Facebook groups and word of mouth — and when workers don’t show, entire harvests are on the line.
Workers are getting ripped off
Dodgy operators, underpayment, unsafe conditions. Workers — especially those on Working Holiday Visas — have almost no visibility into whether a farm is fair dinkum?fair dinkumGenuine. Honest. The real deal. before they commit.
Everything runs on phone calls and luck
Applications, rosters, agreements — most of it still happens over the phone or on paper. Agriculture’s barely touched technology — and it’s making the whole industry less efficient than it needs to be.
The values behind every decision
Both sides deserve respect
Farmers keeping the country fed and workers doing the hard yakka?hard yakkaHard physical work. The kind that properly tires you out. — both sides are equally important. Good Yakka is built for both, not one at the expense of the other.
Fair pay for a fair day’s work
Nobody should rock up to a job without knowing what they’re in for. We believe in full transparency around rates and conditions. No worries should actually mean no worries.
Trust has to be earned, not assumed
Reviews, transparent profiles, and two-way accountability. We’re not rubber-stamping dodgy operators. If you’re on Good Yakka, you’ve earned your spot — true blue?true blueAuthentically Australian..
Regional Australia deserves better tools
The rest of the world moved online years ago. It’s time Aussie ag caught up. This industry has been underserved for too long.
Good Yakka is launching soon
Seasonal farm work is getting an upgrade. Be the first to know when Good Yakka goes live.