News
22.09.2009
Australian Grain States Get Rain, Assisting Wheat, Canola Crops
Australia, the world’s fourth- largest wheat exporter and No. 3 canola shipper, got rain in some grain states, helping production prospects ahead of harvest.
Storms dumped 10 millimeters (0.4 inch) to 30 millimeters of rain in South Australia state yesterday, Commonwealth Bank of Australia said today in a note to clients. Victoria state got as much as 40 millimeters in some parts, the bank said.
“Production prospects are still looking very favorable for those particular regions,” the bank’s agri-commodity strategist Luke Mathews said by phone from Sydney. “The crop there would have been well supported.”
Rain in September is crucial for grain growers in Australia to boost yields in winter crops including wheat, barley and canola. The nation will begin harvesting from about November.
Prospects for winter crops in New South Wales, usually the nation’s second-largest producing state, have plunged because of dry weather in August, Ian Macdonald, the state’s Minister for Primary Industries, said today. Rain in New South Wales was “patchy,” in the 20 hours to 7 a.m. local time and forecast follow up rainfall in the state today is likely to be similar, Commonwealth’s Mathews said.
“Farmers in the New South Wales cropping regions would certainly be praying for some rain today,” he said. “If you are under the storm you may well get a very good soaking, but if you are only a couple of kilometers either side you may well miss out.”
New South Wales may harvest just 4.3 million hectares of the expected 5 million hectares of winter crops sown, the government’s Macdonald said in an e-mailed statement. The outlook in central and southern cropping areas is still “bleak” and rain is needed in the next few weeks to prevent yields declining in those regions, he said.
The New South Wales winter crop harvest may produce more than 8 million tons of grains, Macdonald said.
Bloomberg
