As the combines roll out many farmers, particularly in Mid Canterbury, are counting the losses after wind and hail played havoc with crops in recent months.
All on top of a wet winter that has created more disease than usual.
“We are really just getting started with the harvest,” Mid Canterbury arable farmer and Federated Farmers South Island grain and seed vice-chairman David Clark said.
“So far the vining peas have been quite disappointing. Autumn cereals, having endured some very wet weather, are not expected to be too exciting. Some ryegrasses have been good and some, due to a variety of ills, quite disappointing.
“At the best it will be a solid harvest. It’s definitely not going to be a bin buster. You can’t have such a wet winter, mild start to spring, together with the high winds that buffeted much of Canterbury at the same time, then hail, and on top of that damaged irrigators.
“It’s not been a good year to hope for a good end result.”
Clark said he was aware of some arable farmers who were facing well into a six-figure drop in crop returns.
Most disappointing for farmers was the outlook for next season’s seed multiplication and seed production contracts.
“It looks like the industry has taken on the sheep industry, with companies jumping on the same planes and heading overseas with one another to do the same business with the same clients, at the same time unnecessarily dropping prices to the grower to keep themselves on track,” he said.
“It’s like shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
He urged farmers to do ensure they were growing for margin.
“And stand up to the companies who are undercutting each other overseas as they choose. If farmers can’t grow for a margin we need to say no.
“If that (company) behaviour carries on the march of the black and whites (dairy cows) will just keep on going here in Canterbury.
“The solution is in the hands of individual farmers, who have the right to say no if they know their production costs and do the sums.”
Further south, Makikihi cropping farmer Colin Hurst said the regularity of rain over summer had been beneficial, especially to late ryegrass crops, but it had increased crop disease in winter cereal.
“My gut feeling is it will be quite a good, average harvest up this way.”
Hew Dalrymple
Federated Farmers
A further problem had arisen with chemicals not doing their job, he said.
“We have been under huge pressure to get chemicals on. We have had to use robust quantities to get results and then the chemicals have not always done the job (with disease).
“While we can’t say for sure at this stage, it does appear that some diseases are becoming chemical resistant. Certainly there are considerable variables showing out compared with other years.”
The weather had taken the top off yield in crops, with the harvest shaping up to be just ordinary, he said.
Wind this month January had knocked the stuffing out of oil seed rape due for harvest last week, with four-to-five-tonne crops losing up to 25% yield, he said.
On a positive note, the summer rain was proving good for winter feed crops.
“They are looking very good,” Hurst said.
In the North Island it was very early days, with harvest not set to get into full swing for a couple of weeks, Federated Farmers North Island grain and seed vice-chairman Hew Dalrymple said.
“Crops are looking good. There are still a lot of green crops around – these late-spring plantings are really benefiting from the rain,” he said.
“We had a very good spring and average summer from a heat point of view, but from a moisture point of view the regularity of rain has been very, very good.
“My gut feeling is it will be quite a good, average harvest up this way.”
