November 9, 2007

 

Australia's 2008 sorghum crop to surge on-year

 

 

With plenty of financial incentive for farmers to plant summer sorghum crops and good rains in some areas, Australian production will jump sharply from the 1 million tonnes harvested from the drought-affected crop early in 2007, analysts said Friday (November 9, 2007).

 

An upcountry price in excess of AUS$300 a tonne - double that of two years ago - coming after poor winter cereal crops, provides a "huge incentive" to plant sorghum, said Robert Imray, general manager at agricultural marketing concern FarMarCo Australia Pty. Ltd., based at Toowoomba city in southern Queensland state.

 

"At the end of the day, the guys need cash flow. The price is big, they have got some available moisture and, weather allowing, the area will be well up there," he told Dow Jones Newswires.

 

There is a more intense focus on sorghum in the wake of a drought from June through September that wasted many winter crops in eastern Australia for the second consecutive year, tightening supplies at a time when national grain inventories are nearly exhausted and some are considering importing feed grain.

 

Production from the sorghum crop to be harvested in February through May 2008 in northern New South Wales and Queensland states has been estimated at 1.9 million tons by the government's Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, or Abare.

 

"That's not unreasonable," Imray said, noting annual crops of 2 million tonnes harvested in early 2004, 2005 and 2006.

 

Drought cut the sorghum harvest this year to 1 million tonnes. Sorghum is Australia's biggest summer livestock feed grain.

 

"The big issue for the Australian crop as I see it is getting decent fill-in rains in northern New South Wales," while the planting window remains open for the next two months, Imray said.

 

He noted Queensland has had some good rainfall in recent months.

 

Frank McRae, a technical specialist for crops at the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, said there is still time left to plant sorghum in the state.

 

Following recent rains, farmers will crank up planting activity and probably exceed the department's state forecast of 131,300 hectares, he said.

 

The area actually planted was much less when the forecast was compiled on Oct. 26, but "it might go well above that now that we've had some good rain," he said by telephone.

 

Many sorghum growing areas in southern and central Queensland received more than 200 millimetres of rain in the three months ended Oct. 31 and nearly all received at least 100 millimeters in the same period, according to data issued by the government's Bureau of Meteorology.

 

Sorghum growing areas in the northern third of New South Wales did not see nearly as much rain and could not build the subsoil moisture levels needed for farmers to plant crops with confidence, the data show.

 

Typically, more than a third of national production comes New South Wales and a little less than two thirds from Queensland.