October 17, 2006
Australia's ABB grain dismiss need for imports
Australia would produce enough from a drought-reduced harvest of winter crops to meet domestic demand and there would be sufficient surplus available to export some wheat and barley, Michael Iwaniw, managing director of ABB Grain Ltd. (ABB.AU), said late Monday (Oct 16).
Estimates of production from winter crops have fallen sharply in recent months as a savage drought intensified.
International grain prices have jumped in recent weeks, with domestic prices rising even further on production concerns and now trade at levels that could attract imports, Iwaniw said.
"We believe there will be enough feed grain from the forthcoming Australian harvest to meet domestic demand and there are no fundamental requirements for the importing of grain," he said in a statement.
"Australia is not in deficit for grain and we expect feed, malting barley and other grains to be exported," he added.
Last week, the government's Australian Quarantine & Inspection Service reported that it had received several applications to import a variety of grain types from a number of source countries, a spokeswoman said.
AQIS has referred these applications for risk assessment to Biosecurity Australia, she said.
Production from an Australian wheat harvest now getting underway is expected to fall sharply in the face of the drought.
Some analysts are predicting a wheat output of about 10 million tonnes, down about 60 percent from the last crop year and there has been talk of the crop going to as low as 6 million tonnes.
ABB Grain operates a monopoly over barley exports from South Australia state and trades in and exports other grains.
If latest production forecasts come to pass, given domestic wheat demand of around 5.5 million tonnes a year, availability of wheat for export from Australia's new crop would be cut in the latest harvest to around 5.5 million tonnes, from 19.5 million tonnes previously.