Stuart McMillan

 

 

Australian farmers are dealing with harvest conditions familiar to many prairie farmers.

After a wet growing season that led to above-average production, Aussie farmers are now dealing with significant rains in the middle of harvest.

"Since the start of December, the prime wheat growing regions have had anywhere from 50 to upwards of 200 millimetres of rain, right during harvest," says Stuart McMillan, weather and crop analyst with the Canadian Wheat Board. "Australian grain is much less sprout-resistant than Canadian wheat. Nobody wants to have 200 million millimetres of rain harvest but it impacts them far more severely than it does us."

As a result, he says there will be increased pressure on world feed markets.

"It has limited the availability of quality milling wheat. It has pushed a lot of their grain into feed, so that certainly will put some pressure on the feed market," he says. "But, it will also tighten up world demand for better quality milling wheat."

Western Canadian farmers with malt-quality barley may see some higher prices as a result of the Australian harvest weather.

"Up until this point it looked like Australia would be producing quite a large barley crop. And they will have the quantity, but it does look like it's going to tighten availability of malting barley. Certainly choice malting barley is going to be very slim. I think this tightens things up and puts a lot of pressure on to next year," he says.

 

 ~ Tuesday, December 14, 2010 ~