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Wheat crop suffers rain damage
3 Dec 2008
Heavy rains across the Western Australia wheatbelt, New South Wales and Queensland have caused significant crop damage to wheat farmers and led to a downgrading of the total Australian harvest forecast. Australian Crop Forecasters said about one million tonnes of the forecast 20 million tonne crop were likely to be downgraded from prime quality to feed grade. Before the rain damage over the last week, about 12–13 million tonnes of wheat was expected to be available for export. The New South Wales Farmers Association grains committee said the rain damage would tighten supplies of high protein wheat world-wide. More than 120 millimetres (4.7 inches) of rain fell since Friday in parts of northwest New South Wales. Gavin Warburton, a crop analyst at private consultancy Australian Crop Forecasters said the rain was not likely to affect the size of the harvest but crop quality was a significant issue. "Obviously there''s not going to be as much exported now, given that there''s so much feed grain around now which will be consumed domestically," he said.
Business Spectator/Reuters, 03/12/2008
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