June 29, 2009

Australia's Queensland faces another bumper wheat crop

Ongoing favourable weather in Australia's Queensland state underpins a favorable outlook for winter crop production, including wheat, chickpeas and barley, according to a statement issued Monday (June 29) by farmer lobby AgForce.

"Growers across Queensland are looking forward to another potential bumper crop of wheat, chickpeas and barley," the lobby's grains section president Lyndon Pfeffer said.

Growers in southern Queensland are particularly excited about the prospects, with some districts enjoying their best season in more than two decades.

Conditions are patchy in central Queensland with growers looking for more rain, but the region is seeing significant investment in on-farm infrastructure to manage off-farm storage and transport problems, he said.

Wheat is the major winter crop grown in the northeastern state, which normally accounts for about 5 percent of national output.

Favourable weather last crop year saw production almost double from a long-term average to 1.9 million tonnes, or about 9 percent of national output of 21.4 million tonnes in the last crop year ended March 31.

The government's Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics estimates Queensland will produce 1.8 million tonnes this crop year of a 22.0 million tonnes national crop, most of which is available for export.