Grain prices entice growers

•  Market highs are seeing more farmers consider growing grain. Photo supplied.

By Daisy Baker
July 20, 2022

With grain and oilseed prices in Tasmania trading close to record highs, it is becoming an attractive option for local farmers to add to their cropping rotations. 

There has been a significant cutback in poppies and pyrethrum around the North-East in recent years and with the uncertainty around potato prices, many farmers are looking to grain as a lower cost and risk crop.

Springfield farmer and owner of Auton’s Agricultural Contracting Services, Scott Auton has grown wheat and barley as part of his cropping rotation for the past 10 years.

He said there are a handful of farmers who have been growing grain locally in recent years, but there is growing momentum to increase this.

Last November, the Springfield contractor invested in a header to expand their fleet and help grow the region’s grain output.

“We’ve always grown a little bit of grain and a lot of people we talked with in the Scottsdale area especially said if there was a header available in the area, they would grow,” Mr Auton said.

“There is scope and opportunity to fill a void, and it can be shared around the North-East if people are looking for another cash crop option.

“It’s an attractive alternative for farmers interested in diversifying and adding grain into their cropping rotation.

“Grain crops can be a relatively low-input crop to grow, but like anything the more you want to put into it, the bigger the reward can be at the end.”

Prices are looking strong going into the 2022-23 season, with the grain price up by $100/tonne in the last three months.

XLD Commodities managing director Paul Willows said Tasmania currently needs to import most of its grain from the mainland and as a result local prices largely reflect what is happening in Victoria and the rest of the world.  

“The global grain market has become unbalanced in recent years, as demand from China has significantly increased but total area sown to arable crop has not changed in response to the price rise,”
he said.

“The invasion of Ukraine by Russia significantly reduced the amount of grain that was available to the export market and left the global grain market in deficit.” 

Winter barley, winter wheat and faba beans are currently in and sowing will soon begin for spring wheat and barley to be harvested between late January and early April. 

Mr Auton said as well as delivering good economic return, there are agronomic benefits of growing a range of grains. 

“Farmers have options to harvest the straw for added value which can be for their own use, to on-sell or be incorporated back into their soils which will increase soil carbon and long-term performance.”

Growing legumes will also return a significant amount of nitrogen back into the soil for the following crop or pasture.

Mr Auton said collectively North-East growers could produce more grain than what the region uses but there are not the storage facilities in place to do this.

A small portion of local grain is sold directly from farm to farm but this is only when there is storage capacity available.

Tas Stockfeed nutrition and technical manager Daniel Goss said they are looking at developing temporary harvest storage in the North-East.

“It will really be demand driven, but we feel that if we have a convenient, local facility it will entice more growers of crops that haven’t been very prevalent in the North-East for a few years now,” he said.

“Growers with smaller farm trucks can cart it somewhere local and then we can use our own, larger trucks to cart it to our mills down the coast.

“If a local site in the North-East isn’t viable we will still have a site at Powranna for wheat and barley as well as at the mills.”

Tas Stockfeed’s production has doubled in the past two years, resulting in some difficulties with mainland and Bass Strait shipping due to bottlenecks in their supply channels.

By sourcing more locally grown grain, they hope to relieve some of this pressure. 

“We are actively buying wheat, barley, maize and faba beans. We are particularly excited about the faba beans as they are a high protein feed which are more in demand currently and harder to source compared to wheat and barley,” Mr Goss said. 

“We’ve had more enquiries from locals wanting to grow grain compared to past years, mostly due to grain crops being less intensive to grow, lower cost and a lower risk crop to grow compared to potatoes, onions and poppies which have been the mainstay crops in the district for years.”

There is a strong demand for grain from livestock, dairy and aqua feed businesses in Tasmania which is only expected to grow. 

“There is a significant opportunity for Tasmanian farmers to take advantage of these prices rises and consider planting cereal crops,” Mr Willows said. 

“The world needs farmers to plant more area to cereals. 

“Wheat, barley and canola varieties available to plant in Tasmania have significantly improved so with the right agronomy it possible to obtain a gross margin comparable to other competing crop crops such as poppies and potatoes,” he concluded.