Rains on the plains a fillip for farmers

Just four months ago, Stuart McDonald’s farm west was a vision of agricultural hell.

Farmer Stuart McDonald inspects crops on his property near Canowindra, NSW. Picture: Nicole Baxter

Just four months ago, Stuart McDonald’s mixed farming property near Canowindra in the NSW central west was a vision of agricultural hell.

In full drought, Mr McDonald and his family were hand-feeding sheep and cattle, and ground cover was little more than stubble. “We had zero soil moisture, zero plant growth,” Mr McDonald said.

Now, with extraordinarily good autumn rainfall, “it’s been as close to perfect as we could have it”. “It’s been the best autumn since working full time at home, which has been 22 years,” he said.

Mr McDonald’s story of rain-borne salvation is replicated across much of the nation, such that forecasters are predicting a bonanza in many parts of the farm sector, particularly grains.

Mr McDonald has just finished planting 1200ha of wheat, canola, barley, and chickpeas.

That’s about a 10 per cent increase in area from last year, but the excellent rainfall has made for a huge rise in expected yield.

“We would hope to double, if not treble, grain production,” Mr McDonald said. “We had early rains from mid-February and our autumn rains have continued right through.”

From those falls Mr McDonald has received 400mm of rain, compared to 320mm in 2018 and 340mm for all of last year.

Those two years were so bad, Mr McDonald said, that “for our area they have been close to crop failures”.

Much depends on the rest of the growing season over winter and into spring, but the Bureau of Meteorology has forecast above-average rainfall for all Australian cropping regions during the growing months of June to August.

“What we are seeing is all signals pointing to one of the biggest crops in many years,” said the chief executive of GrainsGrowers, David McKeon. Rainfall had been good across key cropping regions in NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

“There are just a few pockets in Queensland and Western Australia that are still looking for a drink,” Mr McKeon said.

“The scale of the crop we are starting to see in the paddocks is literally the green shoots of economic recovery from COVID-19.”

An Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences report expressed similar bullish sentiments for an upturn of agricultural exports post pandemic.

For grains, export values for January to March were down on the five-year average, but mainly due to the drought, ABARES said.

Domestic production was­ ­expected to recover “subject to seasonal conditions,” the bureau said.

Rabobank says wheat planting is expected to be up by 33 per cent on last season, with canola increasing 35 per cent and the area planted to pulses rising by 36 per cent.

Plantings in NSW are forecast to nearly double, while those in Queensland are expected to ­increase 44 per cent.

All up, grain export volumes could rise 70 per cent, Rabobank said.