Friday, March 29, 2024

Things on the up for arable farmers

Avatar photo
Silos are emptying and crops are generally doing well as arable farmers look forward to what is shaping up to be a reasonable season, Federated Farmers arable industry vice chairman Brian Leadley says.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

The latest Arable Industry Marketing Initiative (AIMI) survey showing a significant reduction in unsold farm-stored grain was good news for cropping farmers.

Leadley said the concern that grain stockpiles from last harvest would not find a home had been allayed in recent months as reflected in the survey results.

“The figures coming through from the AIMI report provide good indication of where grain movement is at and farmers are taking direction from these results to use in their planning,” he said.

New Zealand feed grains were certainly now getting into the pork and poultry industries and while there was still some grain movement to the dairy industry it was at a reduced level.

“So farmers are moving some grain and planting intentions for the coming season reflect the demand as farmers do their research and consider their options.”

Leadley said contracts connected to secured markets were a priority with key options also including higher value crops that were showing some signs of improvement.

“Obviously, in the grain markets we want to see more improvement but farmers are acutely aware that there are quite high global stocks and the NZ grain market remains underpinned by the international scene.”

A localised hail storm that battered the northeast belt of Mid Canterbury last week had left a trail of destruction for a pocket of cropping farmers.

A number of crops including peas, forage rape, red beet and spring-sown radish were damaged and while wheat was knocked it wasn’t destroyed, Leadley said.

“There are quite a few (insurance) claims out there that we know of.

“But, in general, crops are looking well and the moisture that came with the hail has certainly helped given the early dry start to spring.”

Dryland crops were out of the danger zone and the need for irrigation was minimal, Leadley said. 

Grain movements had been affected by the quake.

“We have had some good volumes of South Island grain going to the North Island but infrastructure damage following the 7.8 earthquake has challenged the logistics of that.

“We are weighing up the options of getting the grain north and coastal shipping may end up being not just a short-term option. If what is proposed for shipping is put in place and is viable it could be an ongoing option for moving grain north,” Leadley said.

Meanwhile, the AIMI survey reported the estimated tonnage of unsold grain stored onfarm in October was down 15% against the same time last year across all cereal crops.

The reduction had been driven by considerably less unsold feed barley this year at 38,000 tonnes compared to 60,000t last year.

There was also close to 71,000t of sold feed barley remaining onfarm, down from 105,600t last year leaving overall onfarm storage of feed barley down 34%.

That volume had also reduced 44% from feed barley stored onfarm on July 1.

The volume of feed wheat remaining in onfarm storage at 52,500t unsold and 105,300t sold was altogether up 13% on the same time last year.

The volume of feed wheat stored onfarm had reduced 35% from July 1.

A large proportion of both the unsold feed wheat and unsold feed barley was in southern Otago and Southland with a significant amount of unsold feed wheat remaining in Mid Canterbury.

Overall, most of the unsold grain was in the South Island, though that was to be expected given that was where most cereal crops were grown, Leadley said.

“These volume reductions were as expected.

“The dairy industry has been buying more feed barley recently in order to combat poor grass resulting from adverse weather conditions in the North Island.”

Milling wheat volumes stored on farm at 7200t of unsold grain and 36,400t of sold grain were unchanged from last year.

The area of feed barley sown or intended to be sown this season was down by 21% against last season.

That was a smaller drop than indicated in July but still significant with some of the additional area sown in feed barley because growers were unable to find a contract for an alternative crop.

The area of both milling wheat and feed wheat sown this season was up, a surprising result, Leadley said, because wheat had been considerably harder to move than barley.

Overall, the indicative area to be sown in cereal crops this season was down 7% on the area harvested in 2016.

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading