Arable farmers in grain price battle

BY GERALD PIDDOCK

Arable farmers are shifting their attention to grain prices as harvesting wraps up around South and Mid Canterbury.

They are hoping for the kind of recovery in prices that has occurred overseas, Mid-Canterbury arable farmers, Federated Farmers grain and seed chairman David Clark says.

"It's going to need to occur, because the prices being offered for grain in New Zealand are below the cost of production."

Prices must lift or ground will go out of production, he says.

Already nearly a dozen arable farmers were converting to dairying around Mid Canterbury.

"Those farmers have made the decision that it's not economic to grow crops," he says.

Also of concern is the rise in commodity prices, such as phosphate.

"Farmers costs are expected to increase dramatically over the short term."

It has been a satisfactory harvest for most farmers around Mid Canterbury.

"It hasn't been a bin-buster but its been a good, solid harvest."

The bulk of the cereal harvest was finished in Mid Canterbury although some farmers were still waiting on vegetable seed and linseed crops.

The best of the yields were around 12 tonnes per hectare of feed wheat, but there had been a lot of average yields, he said.

Some farmers were affected by dry weather along the coastal strip and others were severely hit by the December hail storm, he said.

South Canterbury arable farmers with early ryegrass had a difficult season early on, but then the weather turned and it was a straight forward harvest for the rest of the season, South Canterbury Federated Farmers grain and seed chairman Michael Taylor said.

Yields for cereal crops (wheat and barley) on irrigated land were up compared to last year thanks to the good growing season and good rain throughout December to January.

"On the whole it's been one of our better harvests," South Canterbury

The focus now is for farmers to prepare the soil for sowing, he said.

"We'll be putting wheat in the ground in a couple of weeks."

However, Temuka dryland farmer Jeremy Talbot described it as a below average harvest.

Yields for grass seed had been extremely variable.

Early established crops had a satisfactory yield, but rain meant later sown crops in late April-May were very poor yielding, he said.

His sown oil seed rape also grew poorly.

Other crops such later sown barley and oil seed rape sown in March fared better, he said.

Despite some crops being low yielding, they were of a high quality.

"Milling wheat is right off the scale quality-wise," he said.

Leighton Pye of the Pye Partnership in Temuka said yields were up compared to last year for their cereal crops. Their potato harvest had just begun and was looking good so far.

"With the yields being good and the weather being good, we just hope the prices are going to get better," he said.

- © Fairfax NZ News