Australia’s winter crop exports are expected to drop roughly 50 percent, with production the lowest in 10 years as a result of poor rainfall in the eastern states, a new Rabobank report has said.
Rabobank’s Winter Crop Production Outlook, released last week, forecasts a national harvest of just 29.3 million tonnes in the 2018/19 winter crop season, down 23 percent on last year.
The figure, the lowest in a decade, would be even lower were it not for a 3 percent improvement in Western Australia’s forecast, to 15 million tonnes.
WA volumes will make up more than half (52 percent) of the winter crop for the first time in two decades. Without the improved WA figure, the 2018/19 winter crop would be in line to be the worst in the last 20 years, Rabobank said.
“For vast regions of the eastern states, there will be no harvest, and where there is a harvest, yields will be anywhere between 30 percent and 50 percent down on average,” the report states.
Eastern states have been hit with late to no season-opening rains, below-average to lowest-on-average rainfall, and above-average temperatures during the growing season.
These factors coupled with damaging frost to reduce harvest volumes and impact grain quality.
The projected 29.3 million tonne national crop would be the fourth lowest in the past 20 seasons, only exceeding previous years of severe drought.
Report co-author and Rabobank agricultural analyst Wes Lefroy said the reduced harvest, combined with strong local demand and prices, will mean crop exports will drop around 50 percent year-on-year, to 13.9 million tonnes.
The largest component of the crop export, wheat, is expected to decline nearly 50 percent year-on-year to just 8.6 million tonnes.
Barley exports are set to be down 48 percent to 3 million tonnes. Canola is forecast to be down 41 percent, to 1.5 million tonnes.