The 152 Tongan fruit pickers who arrived in Emerald, Australia on 29 October were able to work during the two weeks of quarantine on a farm, under a pilot trial.

The ABC reported Queensland was the first state in Australia to allow farmworkers to work while quarantining.

The entire group was isolated from the rest of the farm, according to Queensland's Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) central region director Stephen Smith.

"They were completely isolated from the packing, they had their own transport and logistics and their own food production."

He said the trial had gone extremely well but was being reviewed before any more flights arrived.

"Like everything COVID-19, things can change so we will do a complete review of the process that went on here to make sure it was absolute best practise."

He said allowing the workers to quarantine on farm was vital to address the estimated 7,000 farmworker shortage in Queensland.

"It does mean that product ends up on Queensland shelves and importantly the Queensland horticulture sectors has workers to pick, prune and pack the product."

The workers all tested negative to CoViD-19 after being tested twice while in quarantine.

Once the workers have finished harvesting grapes in Emerald they will move to other farming areas to help with the harvest.

Meanwhile Emerald grape farm manager Douw Van Der Merwe said the business would have lost millions of dollars in rotten fruit, if it had not been able to secure employees.

"If we didn't have these people, we definitely wouldn't have got this crop off this year — it was very stressful with not a lot of people."

"Luckily with the seasonal workers, that have come in with the scheme, we will have enough pickers for the season," he said.

The ABC reports that under the scheme, only Federal Government-approved employers could organise charter flights to bring workers to Australia at their own cost, including transport and CoViD-19 tests.

In Emerald, the costs were shared between a labour hire company and a grape farm with the group divided across both properties.