Many farmers in the Narrandera area agreed with NSW Farmers Grains Committee chairperson Justin Everitt that this year’s harvest had resulted in a ”bumper” year.
Mr Everitt said the “end result” had been positive despite the challenges farmers had faced with worker shortages, high prices for supplies, a mouse plague and wet weather.
He believes next year’s crops could return an even better year due to the high soil moisture from recent rain.
NSW Farmers Leeton-Narrandera branch chairman Justin Langley said the area’s farms were looking to record bumper crops in the lead up to the harvest, but heavy rainfall had put a slight dampener on the resulting prices.
”Everything was looking fantastic; the yields were looking as good as last year, if not better, but it’s hard to get all the stars to align at the same time,” Mr Langley said.
”However, we started to have some weather damage with the recent rain and the prices dropped as it gets downgraded after those heavy rain events.
”The yields were up on last year which was an excellent year.
”It’s a bit disappointing it was downgraded due to the wet weather but it’s still been quite respectable prices.”
Mr Langley said this year’s harvest was good overall, with certain crops holding their value better than others.
”Canola yielded quite well and the value was an excellent price this year,” Mr Langley said.
”Wheat and barley prices were down a little but still very good.
”Last year was an exceptional year after three years of drought, but the previous three years were not good, so in comparison to the years over the past decade, I’d say this year has been good.
”It’s all finished now and has been a very prolonged harvest because of the wet weather.
”If you have 80 millimetres of rain you wouldn’t harvest for maybe four days as you wait for it to dry out, so it’s frustrating seeing a crop getting wet and being downgraded.”
According to GrainCorp, receival sites took in almost 7.5 million tonnes of grain this harvest – an increase on about 7.2 million tonnes from the previous year.
Mr Langley said Graincorp’s figures were a good representative of the situation for farms in the Narrandera region.
This article appeared in the Narrandera Argus, 3 February 2022.
