Australia: Some farmers in South Australia's mid-north are being turned away from silos because of the poor quality of their barley crops. ABB Grain has reportedly rejected entire loads of barley, because they don't meet the test weight of the poorest category of feed grain.

Farmer Richard Turner says feed five category prices are below the cost of production, but some growers can't even receive that price According to ABC Rural News article published on November 23.

"Fortunately we've been able to deliver all ours," he said, "but there are people around here that haven't been able to deliver because of test weight. They're just not acceptable; the test weight is too low, below the receiver’s standards, even for F5, which is pretty grim. I heard of one bloke all that was left on the screen was two wild oats – the whole lot went through [laughs]."

24 November, 2004