00:01I don't know where it is at this stage, but I believe it is secure, but it's in excess
00:08of $1,500 a tonne, and that's well above the normal $700 to $800 that we normally pay.
00:15We have our starter fertilisers already sorted, that was well before what happened in the
00:21Middle East, but our nitrogen fertiliser that we need to grow in crop is one that's vital
00:27to growing the crop, and it's produced in the Middle East predominantly, and that's the
00:37most difficult one to lock down at the moment.
00:41We're in the, at the moment we're budgeting on no summer crop.
00:48We're going to put in this winter crop, which is half of what we normally do, so to run the
00:53harvest and harvest the rice this year was costing me $2,000 a day, where it would normally
00:57cost half that, so the cost is just exponentially high, and we can't afford to lose money, so
01:05we will just sit back and wait, and on top of that you put water, which we need to grow
01:12the crop as well.
01:13The only reason we're putting in this winter crop is it's going in behind a rice crop and
01:18there's potentially one to two irrigations that we will save, so we're hoping that we
01:23won't lose too much money.
01:24As much as we welcome the, the, the border process in importing fertiliser or importing
01:29anything, it's the cost.
01:32If it's not going to reduce the cost of it, that's not going to be, that's not going to
01:36be the fix.
01:37We, we need, we need to reduce our cost because as a farmer, we're the last port of call.
01:42We, everything stops at us.
01:44We can't go to whoever we sell our product to and say, I want another $50 or $100 a tonne.
01:49It stops there, and unfortunately, we can't afford to lose money, otherwise we won't be
01:54here, and we just need to bunker down and, and wait till things turn and, and get back
02:00to a reasonable price.
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