Contrasting rural tales of harvest and heartbreak

Even in flood-ravaged NSW, wheat production will be well above average. Persistently high commodity prices will serve as a buffer to production losses.

Narrabri grain grower Matt Norrie has lost about 25 per cent of his wheat crop to floods. Picture: Charlie Peel

This week, for the sixth time this year, the Namoi River broke its banks and spilled out over Matt Norrie’s wheat crop. The flood height peaked at around 7m on Thursday and the low-lying ­paddocks bordering the northwestern NSW river were inundated once again.

But it didn’t matter, the fourth inundation event in mid-October was a 7.95m flood that wiped out 50 per cent of his crop.

“I guess it’s all academic now,” Norrie tells Inquirer.

When Inquirer visited Norrie on his 1800ha farm near Narrabri in October, shortly before the biggest of the floods, he was writing off about a quarter of his crop and was concerned that the enduring rain would downgrade the quality of the rest of the durum wheat in his fields.

Now his fears are confirmed.

“The continual rainfall events all the way through that flowering and grain-fill period in September and October means we’re seeing a lot of fusarium head rot in the wheat,” Norrie says. “That’s ­reducing yield but it’s also staining the grain, so we’re likely to get ­severely downgraded quality when we actually can harvest something.”

Agronomists predict losses of more than 120,000ha of wheat in the Moree-Walgett-Narrabri ­region.

Norrie is one of many farmers throughout eastern Australia who have had their high expectations for a third consecutive bumper crop dashed by the ongoing flooding.

It’s not just complete crop ­losses that have put a dampener on what was supposed to be one of the best seasons on record. The downgrading of wheat quality is widespread, with much of the country’s crop expected to fall below premium milling grades.

Even harvesting the crop is problematic. Saturated fields are no place for heavy harvesters and the window of dry weather ­needed to harvest winter crops – usually in November – is yet to materialise.

Norrie is one of many farmers throughout eastern Australia who have had their high expectations for a third consecutive bumper crop dashed. Picture: Charlie Peel

“The remainder of the wheat on our flood-protected country is about a week to 10 days away from maturity,” Norrie says. “The ground is saturated so it’s going to take a while before we can even put a machine in.”

It’s not just wheat that has taken a battering. All winter crops, including barley, oats, canola and pulses, as well as horticulture crops, in flooded districts across NSW, Victoria and some parts of Queensland have been affected.

Rivers and catchments in Victoria and NSW continued to flood this week, particularly in central western NSW. Given the tendency of crops to be grown in fertile flood plains and valleys, it has ­created an ongoing headache for growers of all varieties.

More than half of NSW local government areas were affected, impacting supply chains as well as beef, dairy and sheep farmers. As of Tuesday, a NSW government primary industries survey found $266m in reported damage in the central west alone, $187m of which was damage to broadacre crops.

NSW Farmers president ­Xavier Martin says the financial impact will be “enormous” and compound already high input costs on farms.

“When you consider farming has been a pretty expensive operation over the past year, and now so much of the food and fibre we have grown has been destroyed or damaged, it’s really tough from both a personal and a business standpoint,” he says.

“Unfortunately this disaster is not over yet, but we know this year will go down in history not just as one of the worst widespread flooding events we’ve seen.

“A lot of this flood damage cannot be insured against, and we’ll be feeling the impact well into next year in terms of missing the summer sowing window ­because the ground is still so wet.”

James Maxwell, a senior ­insights manager at Rural Bank, estimates about $250m in wheat has been completely wiped out. The financial impact of downgraded wheat quality is even ­higher, at an estimated $450m-$500m, up to $300m of which has come from NSW.

Maxwell predicts the state will harvest 14.5 million tonnes this year, down 28 per cent on last year. Still, production in NSW will be 34 per cent above average, highlighting just how good last year’s crop was and also showing that, while damaging to grain quality, the widespread rain has boosted production overall.

Aerial drone photograph of the NSW town of Moree inundated by floodwaters. Picture: Christoph Nagele / Townlife

Maxwell predicts the national total will be 57.8 million tonnes, down 10 per cent on last year but 32 per cent higher than average. Production losses in the eastern states are expected to be slightly offset by an 8 per cent increase in South Australia.

“Last year was a record by a fair margin so we are coming down off a very high benchmark,” Maxwell says. “There are very different ­stories going on here in the east-west divide. Western Australia and SA are both looking fantastic in terms of production and quality. We should still have enough decent quality wheat to service our export customers.”

In its September outlook, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and ­Sciences forecast the 2022-23 ­national winter crop harvest to be 55.5 million tonnes, down from 61.9m last year, but still the fourth highest on record.

ABARES warned an “overly wet spring” could downgrade quality and the gross value – a situation that has come to pass.

“What we know so far is that, certainly in those areas which are most affected, there’s been some pretty devastating local impacts, with the producers losing entire crops and a few reports of stock losses and so forth,” ABARES executive director Jared Greenville tells Inquirer.

“It’s quite devastating in a number of areas. This time, as opposed to the start of this year and the latter half of last year, it’s a lot more widespread.”

Greenville says the affected local government areas count for 46 per cent of national agricultural production.

One positive for farmers is persistently high commodity prices, which will serve as a buffer to production losses.

“Outside the flooding regions, the conditions across Australia and pretty exceptional again,” Greenville says.

He says farmers will tap into reserves to cover losses but the drawdown on savings will make them more vulnerable to future events.

Part of the problem is that no one really knows when the rain and flooding will end.

The La Nina that has borne both bountiful rain and livelihood-wrecking floods for the past two seasons is predicted to remain until early next year and Bureau of Meteorology forecasters say much of eastern Australia is headed for above-median rainfall over the next three months.

The omnipresent La Nina and the hit to the winter crop was cited as a factor in a 22 per cent plunge in Elders agribusiness shares this week.

Consumers are also likely to notice the affects as disrupted supply chains add to already high grocery prices. Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned the floods would contribute a 0.25 per cent hit to GDP in the fourth quarter and cause fruit and vegetable ­prices to rise 8 per cent.

Michael Harvey, Rabobank’s senior analyst for dairy and consumer foods, says the flooding will combine with other inflationary pressures to increase food prices into next year.

“There’s the effect on current winter crop harvests but there’s also the impact on summer crops and planting intentions in the coming months,” he says.

“For the likes of dairy farmers there’s some milk that has been dumped … but the biggest impacts will be around infrastructure damage and the loss of fodder and feed.

“Then you look at supply chain logistical challenges. That feeds through to the consumer around potential challenges to product availability and adds to the food inflation story that we’re seeing anyway.”

Despite the difficulties being faced by some farmers, ABARES predicts the summer crop production will reach the fifth highest on record at 5.2 million tonnes, 6 per cent below last season’s ­record.

Cotton Australia chief executive Adam Kay says some growers in southern regions have missed the window to plant a summer cotton crop. He predicts the disruption will decrease the national cotton crop from 5 million to 4.5 million bales.

“There are optimal planting days and that’s the dilemma for some growers,” Kay says.

“This next month will really determine what happens.”

While cotton production in some NSW regions is expected to be down 30 to 40 per cent, that could be buffered by increased soil moisture enabling some farmers to grow cotton in places where they normally could not.

Back in Narrabri, Matt Norrie says the high moisture profile makes for a promising cotton crop and he was fortunate to find enough dry days, coupled with some farming ingenuity, to get his cotton planted in the elevated flood-protected paddocks on his property.

“It has been wet and it’s taken us a couple of goes to be able to get it in but we’ve managed to get that in and up,” he says.

“That’s where we are a bit lucky in the diversification of our business. With a summer and winter crop you don’t have all your eggs in one basket. It’s just taken what could have been an exceptional year back to an average year for us.”