November 8, 2005

 

Rains delaying wheat harvest in Australia
 

 

Rains continued to delay harvesting of winter grains in Australia although heavy, flooding rains Monday in parts of the country's south-east probably would not be a problem, a GrainCorp Ltd. (GNC.AU) official said Tuesday.

 

A number of factors, including recent rains and late sowing of crops, has delayed the start of harvest in GrainCorp's central division, said Murray Wilkinson, GrainCorp's central division manager.

 

GrainCorp was the dominant grain storage provider in Australia's three eastern states and its central division covered the southern two thirds of New South Wales state.

 

"Fortunately, most grain in affected areas is still green at this stage and we don't anticipate the recent rain having a significant effect at this point in time," he said through a spokeswoman.

 

"We are looking for some fine weather to enable harvest to commence soon and would expect that harvest will begin within the next seven days, given fine conditions," he said.

 

Generally, the harvest begins in northern areas and cascades south to finish near the south coast by year-end.

 

Wilkinson was commenting after heavy rains fell in the 24 hours to early Tuesday in the southern half of New South Wales.

 

Some areas in that state recorded more than 100 millimetres of rain in that period.

 

Most grain growing districts in this area and in neighboring Victoria state received 25 to 49 millimetres of rain in that period, according to official data.

 

Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio reported flash flooding at Molong hamlet in New South Wales's central west, and in Griffith and West Wyalong towns and Wagga Wagga city in major grain growing areas in the state's south.

 

Saturday, some cropping areas in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland state received up to 100 millimetres of rain, stopping the harvest, according to ABC reports.

 

National Australia Bank Ltd. (NAB), in a review of farm commodity markets issued Tuesday, noted that as some key wheat growing areas were preparing to harvest, the rains "have some eyebrows raised as to potential quality problems that might arise."

 

"The global wheat market doesn't necessarily need more feed wheat," the bank said.

 

Ongoing rains on mature wheat crops could result in a downgrading of milling quality wheat to feed grade, possibly expanding already wide price spreads.

 

Bulk wheat exporter AWB Ltd. (AWB.AU) projected new crop wheat production in a range of 23 million to 25 million tonnes.

 

After annual domestic demand for wheat of about 5.5 million tonnes was met, the remainder of production was available for export, making Australia a major global supplier.