Australia: Victoria’s malting barley crop 2009-10 fails

Victoria’s 2009-10 grain harvest will be remembered as the one growers would rather forget, Weekly Times Now communicated on January, 15.

Showing lots of promise last October, bad weather later plagued the crops, taking its toll on barley quality. Coupled with low prices, growers have been hit hard, it is reported.

The poor-quality grain was probably no better epitomised than by a new, unofficial barley category: Feed 6. AWB Limited grain marketer for Western Victoria Alister Boyd said Feed 6 had similar specifications to Feed 5 but was open for shot grain.

"It's not an official segregation," Mr Boyd said.

"I don't know what you would do with it."

Mr Boyd said there was plenty of feed grain available in Victoria.

He said Feed 1 barley was relatively cheap, so feed buyers would look to better-quality feed grain rather than lower grades of barley.

He said some Feed 2 and Feed 3 barley and would be bought by feed-grain users.

Mr Boyd said there was not much malting barley delivered to Victorian storages this season but the market had not overreacted.

"There is enough malting barley in South Australia," he said.

"There is no reason for the malting barley market to skyrocket.

"Last year, the industry feared there was not enough malting barley around but it still found some."

Harvesting still had about two more weeks to go in the Western District, depending on rain delays.

A steady flow of grain from the Western District was still flowing into AWB, GrainCorp and Australian Bulk Alliance sites last week

Mr Boyd said the GrainFlow receival site at Dimboola was still receiving grain, mostly from farm storages.

Some larger growers were delivering grain temporarily stored in silo bags until their harvest was completed.

He said some grain was being delivered to Dimboola from as far away as Balmoral, south of Horsham.

He said the attraction was the large number of segregations.

The ABA site at Lakaput, southwest of Beaufort, had 18-19 segregations this year covering wheat, barley, canola and oats.

Owner and manager Steve Broadbent said it was all about providing a service to growers.

At GrainCorp's Westmere site, wheat and barley was still flowing in to the storage last week, although some canola was being delivered in small quantities.

15 January, 2010