Inquiry begins January 17 and concludes on 31 March.
Von Crumb the harvest details you are hearing are most likely for over there on the east coast which got a very late start and thanks to a very kind season ended up with good crops generally speaking. The strong beef market will undoubtably mean a significant percentage of the grain grown over there this year will have been of a feed nature. Also with late starts growers are likely to favour barley (used as feed) over wheat because it has a shorter season. The point being that it was likely that the area to wheat was probably down. Majority of barley is traded domestically to feedlotters and livestock operators.
Now the AWB's bread and butter comes from the SA and WA wheat crop because a great percentatge of it is exported. I had heard reports earlier in the season of a poor crop likely from the Eyre Peninsula (SA) but the high rainfall areas down towards Vicco could well have had their usual good season. I am not 100% sure of SA's crop at this stage though and can only give a WA perspective. WA being the largest wheat producing State in Australia by a country mile. I will provide postings of the frost damage as it continues to be reported on. Here's one from today I posted earlier:
Farmer loses 90 per cent of grain crop Report: Kirstyn March
As harvest progresses in the wheatbelt, so does the realisation that the winter frosts, were more severe than first thought. Mukinbudin farmer Ross English predicts that he's lost almost 90 per cent of his total cropping program to frost. And, what's more, he says he's not alone, when it comes to downgraded predictions. He says most farms in the north eastern wheatbelt, have had some degree of frost damage and harvesting has been heartbreaking. "I've left about 400 acres, not worth going over, because when you start doing about 22 kilometres to get a box full of wheat, it's time to give it away. So go and find another paddock somewhere else, which is pretty hard."
In this report: Ross English, Mukinbudin farmer.
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/wa/today.htm
AWB Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
