This comes after concerns were raised last season by other marketers and South Australian Farmers Federation (SAFF) about the operation of

the shipping stem and the level of information available to industry.

 

Viterra president South East Asia Rob Gordon said the company was ensuring it attracted grain into the system."

 

As the owner and operator of a volume-driven infrastructure business, it is in our economic interest to provide options to growers and grain marketers to attract their business and, in turn, maximise volumes

through our assets," he said.

 

The changes Viterra is planning to implement include: access to grower warehousing information, quality data information, additional information on the shipping stem and increased information regarding exported grain.

 

Elders Toepfer Grain managing director Mark Thiele said while he believed this week's announcement was a step in the right direction, this information had been previously available to growers in the days of AusBulk.

 

"They're getting back to what I think is the minimum required and the minimum people should expect," he said. "Viterra could probably go a bit further. They'll give access for quality site data, but in my view grain growers should be informed of quality by site, and also quality by port zone and quality by state to help them in their marketing decisions."

 

"For example, last year there was a scare about feed wheat and people were uncertain whether to forward sell feed wheat. If they could have seen how much there was, it would have helped with their decision to sell or not," he said.