Rain brings hope for bumper crop


FOR the nation's graingrowers, rain has never been worth so much. If it falls across the grainbelt in the coming month - and there were promising showers on the weekend - the fortunes of the rural sector could be revived by the most valuable cereal crop Australia has produced. The Government's Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics forecasts a 25.9million-tonne wheat crop, the second-biggest on record. Strong world wheat prices mean the crop would be worth a record $8.6billion - $2.3billion more than the bumper 2001-02 harvest. The total winter cereal crop, including barley, canola, chickpeas, lupins, triticale and wheat, would be worth $12.4billion. World grain prices have come off their peaks of the last month but remain at extraordinary levels. AWB, the former Australian Wheat Board, will be offering between $400 and $420 a tonne. Last year, it was worth a record $434 a tonne and the year before $246. The long-term average is barely $200.

Anzac Day is considered the start of the planting season, and over the weekend, patchy showers fell over much of the southeast grain belt. While it was a promising beginning, farmers will need more rain in spring if their crops are to succeed. And for a record return, the soft commodity boom must continue to keep world grain prices high.

Philip Wilsdon, who farms at Gulnare, two hours north of Adelaide, will this week start sowing his 1200ha of grain: bread wheat, durum or pasta wheat, malt and feed barley, and fava beans. Success is a matter of rain and timing. Over the weekend, he had a welcome 18mm but, before that, the last fall was just 4mm in February. "Going back through our records, it is the driest for quite a few years; so many months with not much rain," he said. As well as holding great potential, after five years of drought, for many farmers this year will be the last roll of the dice. "The last five years, the last two especially, have been pretty severe on cashflows," Mr Wilsdon said. "If things go wrong this year, it will be a pretty sad story." Farmers face rising costs and the potential for rising returns. Mr Wilsdon, who has been farming since 1980 and endured his first drought two years later, said his input costs had increased 40per cent since spring. Fertiliser and herbicide prices have doubled and diesel is up. He worries that people are risking a lot of money to plant wall-to-wall grain. "People are going for it big time," he said. "If grain prices fall over and the season doesn't come good, people could lose a lot of money."

Luke Chandler, from international food and agribusiness specialists Rabobank, said rain held the key for the Australian wheat crop. "Depending on further rains, Australian wheat production may double in 2008," he said. Rabobank is forecasting between 23 million and 26million tonnes, compared to just 13million tonnes in 2007-08 and 10.6million tonnes in 2006-07. Mr Chandler said there had been big wheat plantings around the world but grain prices should remain strong for the next couple of seasons. The best weekend falls of rain occurred over much of the South Australian grain belt.

John Lush got 28mm on his farm at Mallala, north of Adelaide. "I have just come home from church and everybody up there was very buoyant and bubbly," he told The Australian yesterday. He had already sown his canola, and said he would sow faba beans today. "We will be right into it. It is a good start, and half the battle is to get your crop in early." Mr Lush said the fundamentals had changed. "It looks as if farming has turned the corner at long last and grain prices will remain good," he said. "If we can grow a good crop, we will make good money. "A lot of farmers that have been down in the dumps, I have been saying, 'Just hang on, it is going to get a whole lot better'."

The rain was lighter and more patchy over Victoria and southern and central NSW over the weekend. Most of the West Australian grain belt had good rains over the past month, and the state grain handler, CBH, is preparing for a record 16million-tonne crop. Farmers in northern NSW and southern Queensland have good sub-soil moisture and just want a planting rain.


_{Bron: The Australian}