Robert Hoddle, of Gunnible Pastoral Company based in Gunnedah, said he would need to pay about $4000 for one person to come from overseas to pick fruit on his farm.

And, with 35 workers needed to harvest his oranges in June, he's unsure if it will happen, and what the future holds for the business now.

Every year, Mr Hoddle relies on "a mix of Pacific Islanders, back packers, and locals" for harvest, but he said this steep figure was too much for a few weeks of fruit-picking.

The influx of workers would also be subject to the 3000-person capacity allowed to enter NSW each week - a figure that was temporarily halved to 1505 after the latest National Cabinet meeting on January 8 as NSW and other states manage a new, more contagious strain of COVID-19.

"I'm very concerned about the outlook for this year and whether we'll be able to get our crop picked," Mr Hoddle said.

"We'll probably have a $1.3 million loss which will probably put us out the door, and consumers are going to pay a lot more."

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Mr Hoddle said he understood that workers need to quarantine for 14 days, but said it didn't make sense for them to have to do this in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane before coming into the regional areas for work.

"The federal government have said they'll issue VISA's but NSW has to have a safe pathway for those that will work," he told ACM.

NSW Minister for Agriculture and Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall agreed that an easier route to regional towns needed to be developed for those coming in for harvest time.

"Due to the unwillingness of Australians to take up these wonderful job opportunities, we will have to massively step up the number of overseas workers on short term VISA's that come into Australia, in VIC, NSW and QLD in particular," Mr Marshall said.

"I firmly believe ... that we need a quarantine facility on the Eastern seaboard so we can bring them in outside of the passenger quarantine in Sydney and Melbourne airports.

"That way we can bring in overseas workers via charter flight and avoid ... the weekly passenger caps and avoid the expensive hotel quarantines in Sydney so we could quarantine people closer to the end destination for the workforce."

Mr Marshall acknowledged Mr Hoddle's financial concerns on the issue, but said "there will always be some cost".

"There is a cost to bring people in and quarantine them so there will be some cost shouldered by industry and that's the price you pay for relying on overseas workers," Mr Marshall explained.

"As a small operator it would be [expensive], but for other industries, it's not so much of an issue because they're much larger."