WA grain growers set to break records with this year’s bumper harvest

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Western Australia's grain growers are on track to deliver a bumper harvest this summer, with analysts predicting a new record of more than twenty five million tonnes. But the shine of the promising harvest is being dulled by the prospect of lower global prices, due to a surge of production in Russia, the European Union and the United States.

Transcript

00:00It's 2025, it looks like it's going to be a really good year.

00:06Dan Sanderson has seen some record seasons before, but this one is up there with the

00:13best.

00:14How much have you got to get Jason in there?

00:18The final weeks of the growing season have been kind in WA.

00:21We've had a soft finish with mild temperatures towards the end, the crops have been able

00:26to ripen properly and finish off and the yields have just gone really high, it's just been

00:32a great year so far.

00:34Crop analysts are now confident that when the headers finally pull up in the new year,

00:39there will be a new record.

00:41The yields are very good, grain size is good, quality is good.

00:45The tonnes that we projected exceeding 25 million tonnes, which will be a record, looks like

00:51it's going to occur.

00:52Cathy Cook's canola looked a picture back in August.

00:57Three months on, the canola has ripened and is ready to harvest.

01:02It flowered for well over a month after I saw you and it's finished off really well, Mark.

01:08On Craig Newman's property near Varley, it's a similar story.

01:12The canola is going quite well, I think it's going to be our best yield, we haven't actually

01:17finished the first paddock yet but it's looking pretty good, it could be our best year so

01:22far on canola for production.

01:24But overshadowing the record crop forecast is a global stockpile of grain.

01:30Prices are down at least 20% on last year, they still could change a little but the dollars

01:34per tonne this year are certainly nowhere near what they were in our record year in West

01:39Australia in 2022.

01:40Dan Sanderson knows while prices can fluctuate, the key is having the volume to sell.

01:48Because the yields are there, yields king, we'll have a good year.

01:52If it was going to be in every season, it would hurt but with the yields we've got, it's going

01:56to be okay.

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