Western Australia-South Australia grain ties prove a good fit
Western Australia’s CBH Grain is usually the second largest exporter of grain out of South Australia and the company says the two states have a good fit.
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Australia’s largest co-operative, Western Australia-based CBH Grain has strong ties to South Australia and the state has played a key role in its growth.
General manager of marketing and trading Jason Craig said the company buys between 500,000 to 750,000 tonnes of SA grain each season.
“We’re usually the second largest exporter of grain out of SA,” he said.
“We predominantly focus on wheat and barley out of SA, but also canola and lentils.
“SA is a good fit for CBH, it’s similar to WA, in that it’s an export-focused state with a lot of customers in Asia and the Middle East.”
CBH Grain has a team of three employees based in SA, one in the head office in Adelaide and two out in country areas.
The company has made a significant investment in SA, with the purchase of Blue Lake Milling, a leading manufacturer of premium Australian oat products which is based in Bordertown, three years ago.
“CBH Grain has been around for 85 years and we’ve been exporting oats around the world for more than 70 years,” Mr Craig said.
“We see a lot of potential in the global market for oats.”
CBH Grain is the largest grain exporter in Australia, sending out between seven to eight million tonnes of grain annually, on 200 vessels a year, to 30 different destinations.
Mr Craig said there was particularly strong growth in demand for Australian grain from the Philippines, which has overtaken Indonesia as our largest wheat destination. Domestic demand was also strong due to the drought in the eastern states.
“Nearly 2.8 million tonnes of WA grain went to the east coast last season, predominantly wheat and barley, which has never been seen before and certainly put a floor in the market,” he said.
Like SA, WA is having a fairly tough season this year.
Farmer Dennis Saunders, whose family started farming in the Northam shire of WA in the 1930s after moving over from Bordertown in SA, said his yields were “all over the shop” this year, going anywhere from 0.5 to 4 tonnes to the hectare.
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Mr Saunders has only received 220 millimetres for the year, much lower than his average 320mm.
“It’s been a tough season especially compared to last year, which was our best on record, with 400 millimetres of rain for the year,” he said.