Bumper Australian grain harvest begins in South Australia and Queensland

South Australia has kicked off its harvest season, with the first deliveries arriving in the Eyre Peninsula.

Deliveries of grain into bulk handler storages in Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland has signalled the beginning of an expected bumper 2021-22 national grain harvest.

Canola has begun to flow into CBH Group’s Geraldton terminal and field peas have been delivered to Viterra’s SA network.

It is not clear how much or what type of grain has been delivered to GrainCorp’s Queensland storages but the company confirmed harvest deliveries had begun.

A CBH spokeswoman said the first canola had been delivered to Geraldton on September 22 and other sites were now receiving grain.

As of yesterday, CBH had received a total of 23,000 tonnes of grain.

WA is expecting a huge canola harvest and record grain production overall, despite recent frosts hitting yields.

The CBH spokeswoman said it was too earlier to tell what damage the frosts had caused.

Arno Bay farmer Jeremy Calliss, on the Eyre Peninsula in SA, was the first to deliver grain to Viterra, taking a load of field peas to the Port Neill site on 6 October.

Viterra reported receiving 107 tonnes of grain from its western region for the week ending 10 October, with operations yet to start in its central and eastern regions.

Viterra operations manager for the Western region, Nick Pratt, said the company’s sites were “ready to go”, and the network was receiving strong demand from buyers.

“We have around 40 buyers in the Viterra system which gives growers greater options on who they sell their grain to,” Mr Pratt said.

He expected deliveries to start slowly over the coming weeks as the season ramped up.

For the first time this season, Viterra has introduced a port direct service, offering growers the option of storing their grain on farm and delivering directly to port after harvest, saving money on receival fees.

Growers across many Australian regions are expecting a bumper harvest this year, with the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimating the gross value of production forecast will reach $73 billion in 2021-22.

The biggest contribution to growth in exports will be crops, according to ABARES estimates, which are set to rise by 17 per cent to $30 billion.