Although many MIA farmers will remember 2018 as a year to forget, green shoots were bestowed on a fortunate few.
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The high price of water and a shortage of grain and hay did deal a savage blow to many growers and graziers in the region.
Across the MIA 2018 was a bad year for rice, with the price of water soaring and remaining at around $450 per megalitre resulting in reductions in the quantity and the quality of grain being grown.
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Water conditions were also just as bad if not worse for dry land growers in many of the outer regions such as Weethalle which rely on runoff.
However, in other regions especially those with access to irrigation, largely fine weather in December has allowed many growers to finish harvesting wheat on time, and with decent yields and grading.
“Harvests have been okay, we had a nice soft finish to the season in the winter cereals and wheat, other dry land areas were a bit disappointing,” Terra AG agronomist Andrew Madden said
“Noodle and biscuit wheat did well and durum wheat went pretty well, they were harvesting later than normal this year, most guys just beat Christmas through. December most of them had a pretty good run with the weather,” Mr Madden said.
Following December’s harvest NSW’s 2018 farmer of the year Glen Anderazza said it was a great success coming in at between 2,100 and 2,200 tonnes of wheat.
“We got it off without too much drama with the weather, second best yield I’ve had, seven and a quarter tonnes harvested per hectare,” Mr Anderazza said.
“We were struggling to make the protein which was going a little bit high but we did manage to get most of our biscuit wheat within the top two grades.
“Fertiliser was expensive but no more expensive than any other year, we did use 10 to 15 per cent more fertilizer than normal but it didn't compare anything close to the costs of water.
“With the allocation we got and the expense of water it was basically costing me $400 a meg, and we did three irrigations during the year,” Mr Andreazza said.
With this solid harvest Mr Andreazza said most of his costs in the lead up to planting next year’s winter crop will be spent on land forming, allowing him more flexibility in deciding which crops to grow.
Mr Andreazza said this decision will ultimately depend on rainfall in the major dams.
“We’re making bigger bays and flats basically taking out whole fields and reducing the amount of bays by bellow half, these flats will be for anything I can grow rice or put in beds and grow crops so it gives us a lot more options,” he said.
“Some people will be spending money on new gear, some will be land forming and some will even be stashing grain aside for next year because it's not looking that encouraging at the moment.”
Compared to successful harvest experienced by Mr Andreazza at his irrigated property in Willbriggie, third generation Weethalle farmer Keith Cowen said that 2018 was the second year in a row that he had to abandon growing dry-land wheat.
Shortages in grain and hay were also a disaster for Weethalle sheep according to Mr Cowen who said the numbers of sheep being reared in the region was down between 50 and 60 percent last year.
Meanwhile in Rankins Springs and Barellan the dry land wheat harvest was a mixed bag according to Albert Gorman from Ag Grow Agronomy and Research.
“Every farmer had some good paddocks and some bad paddocks, there were some poor and disappointing paddocks and there were some that were better than expected in terms yield and grain quality which was quite reasonable for cereals," Mr Gorman said.
“Nearly all the cereal crop that was planted was harvested, we had a few holdups with rain but they just meant that we had to stop for a couple of days, there was no grain downgraded due to rainfall that I heard of.
“The stock feed market is dominating the market due to drought and I think a fair bit of wheat will go to that because of demand, there will be a fair bit of feed that will stay around the MIA with some going to other regions,” Mr Gorman said.
On the machinery side of things, Serfain Machinery sales manager Rodney Dunn said a lack of confidence by growers about next year’s rainfall is widespread.
Growers will be ‘on the fence’ about whether to buy new machinery in lieu of next year’s winter season, Mr Dunn said.
However, Mr Dunn is confident that strong interstate sales and a business model that capitalises on an increasingly diverse variety of crops being grown in Griffith, will allow for a solid year.
Despite a slight downturn in growth for sales at both Serafin Machinery and Serafin Ag Pro in 2018, Mr Dunn said the business is still growing.
“Last year was probably down a little bit compared to 2017 and 2016, but they were two of our best years on record,” Mr Dunn said.
“The saving grace for us is that we are so diverse, even though we are focusing on two main product lines which are seeding and tillage, they are very diverse in themselves which means we can sell them to a range of markets.”
Mr Dunn said selling a diverse array of products has also had the benefit of reducing water as a factor influencing Serafin’s growth.
Serafin has begun expanding its operation and is set to begin building a new complex located at the intersection of Kidman Way and Thorne Road.
Mr Dunn said the complex will be used by both by Serafin Machinery and Serafin Ag Pro and is looking at hiring around 10 additional staff.
With overall drops since 2016 in the volume of grain being grown in Griffith, especially in the rice industry, Mr Dunn said high sales of machinery to Queensland’s cane and cotton industries have been good.
“Mostly big heavy offset discs for sugarcane and banana plantations are what we have been selling in Queensland,” Mr Dunn said.
“A lot of the machines (sold) are brought in from Brazil, they’ve got their own dedicated sugarcane products because sugarcane is big in Brazil, we have a dedicated product line and they are fairly specific products.
“(Locally) our small offset disk range has gone through the roof, we have got a very simple little product that suits a lot of different and smaller markets which are high volume.”
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