Australia: North firms despite harvest volume

Harvest activity in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales has peaked this week, and prices have firmed as grower selling of wheat and barley thins.

Despite their drop in price since harvest started, chickpeas in southern Qld are selling in volume, and tying up much of the available road freight, which has left some consumers scrambling for a load or two of wheat or barley for nearby.

In the south, some better-than-expected yields in northern Victoria and southern NSW are offsetting the impact of a dismal year yield-wise for most growers in the eastern half of South Australia’s grainbelt.

The SA draw on grain from Vic and southern and central NSW is the one to watch, particularly if SA exporters as well as consumers look east to fill their requirements.

Table 1: Indicative prices in Australian dollars per tonne.

Central Qld’s winter-crop harvest is drawing to a close, and rapid progress is being made on southern Qld’s western Downs and NSW border region amid mostly dry and warm to hot weather.

Consumers looking for barley and ASW-type wheat have found it hard to get growers’ attention, as chickpeas and milling-grade wheat attract the bulk of their selling interest.

One trader said he normally covers volume going into feedlots at this time of the year from growers selling off the header, but this harvest, more than 75 percent of the required tonnage was coming from the trade.

“Growers are happy to deliver to a depot close and handy …but they don’t want to come on the Downs because it’s all about trucks at the moment,” the trader said.

“The grower is not an active seller on a delivered basis.

“Trade shorts in the delivered Downs market are supporting those January prices too.”

Exceptions exist for feedlots where plenty of grain is on their doorstep in districts like Condamine and Dalby.

Early indications are that around two thirds of the wheat being harvested in southern Qld and northern NSW is making H2 or better, and those milling grades are attracting a premium well above the Downs feed market.

With limited export opportunities, the barley market is showing more liquidity.

However, barley demand for cattle on shorter programs is modest, as roughage from hay, straw, silage, and cottonseed is readily available in the bountiful season.

“Cottonseed is $150/t cheaper now than it was this time last year, when we were looking for barley because it has that extra roughage.”

Some showers and storms are rolling through the northern region, but the general forecast for coming days is for hot and dry weather, and many growers in southern Qld west of the Inner Downs are expected to wrap up harvest next week.

Consumers generally are well advanced on their January-March coverage.

AgVantage Commodities broker Brendon Warnock said harvest north and west of Narrabri is averaging protein of 10.8-12pc. and progressing rapidly in the sunny weather.

“There’s a fair bit of H2, and ASW and APW,” Mr Warnock said.

“With yields at 5.5t/ha, it’s not that surprising that protein is down a bit.”

Faba beans as far south and west as Coonamble are being sold at around $430/t delivered Narrabri for No. 1 grade, and canola and chickpeas are also preferred cash crops to sell off the header.

Mr Warnock said growers were selling what they could not store on farm, and bulk handlers and packing sites were taking the overflow.

“Lots of places can’t store everything they’ve got.

“People are filling up their on-farm storage with wheat and barley.”

Some faba beans were also being retained, with potential to be fed to sheep and cattle at home, or sold for cash to exporters or domestic consumers.

“It’s a good drought hedge.”

Mr Warnock said road freight should ease up once the harvest peak passes, and trucks can run further afield than packers or depots within easy distance of the farm.

Many growers in southern NSW are either windrowing canola or harvesting early cereals or both, and activity has just started to pick up in north-west Vic.

Harvested volume in SA is creeping up, and the state’s production remains the biggest unknown for the current harvest.

Estimates from the recent Grain Industry Association of Victoria crop tour indicate frost did not do as much damage as initially feared last month, but the dry growing season has yield expectations for the key Mallee and Wimmera regions well below average.

Recent rain in Vic will help quality in its central regions, and in the Wimmera, while most SA crops were too far advanced to get a last-minute reprieve from falls of recent weeks.

Traders have for some weeks seen SA stockfeed mills reach into Vic and/or NSW to book grain.

If SA wheat is high in protein and low in volume, central NSW looks like being the preferred source of plump and lower-protein grain for blending, particularly if NSW exporters continue to concentrate on shipping canola and pulses rather than wheat in coming weeks.

Wilken Grain trading manager Andrew Kelso said, quality permitting, lentils and canola are likely to be the cash crops of choice for growers to sell off the header once the Vic harvest gets going.

“I get the sense growers are going to…wait and see on wheat and barley.”

Reduced volume of wheat and barley out of both Vic and SA could well see some shorts appear in the market in coming months if traders are forced to show their hands and bid up to fill forward-sold cargoes.

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Tags: Australia, harvest, barley, prices, wheat, chickpeas, yield, sorghum