While harvest in Queensland begins to wind down, southern NSW finally begins to ramp up.
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However, a lack of rain earlier in the season and heavy frost have left some MIA farmers in the lurch.
Dryland grain grower Nick Eckermann estimates he’s lost almost half his crops because of the cold snaps, with canola being hit the hardest.
“It’s been pretty low because of the below average rainfall and significant frost average,” he said.
“It’s affected most of our area, as far as I’m aware. We’ll harvest what we can get.”
The damage could be anywhere between 30-70 per cent. It just depends on the size and the area.”
Mr Eckermann estimates he’s 40-50 per cent through his harvest.
The wild weather and intermittent storms over the last week has kept producers guessing, often making timelines difficult to predict.
Dealing with snap changes in the weather is an unfortunate part of the job.
Fortunately, not all farmers have suffered to the same extent this year.
Third generation farmer Greg Bonetti says a later harvest saved a lot of their crops from a similar fate.
They hope to start harvesting by week’s end.
“Hopefully we can start soon. It just depends on whether there is any more rain during the week.”
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Mr Bonetti said a particularly big storm on Saturday afternoon dumped rain on one of the family farms.
“It’s going to delay that for another few days at least.”
He says it’s going to be hard to tell the extent of the damage before going into harvest, but he’s optimistic.
“It’s going to be a bit hard to tell until we get into the harvest, but I think we’re a bit immune from it.”
We are getting started a bit later on,” he said.
“They didn’t seem to be as badly affected as some of the dry area crops.”
An update from GrainCorp on November 13 estimates total deliveries have exceeded 1 million tonnes.
Mr Bonetti says a drop in prices have led to more difficulties for MIA farmers.
“It would’ve been good if prices had held up like they were toward the middle of the year, but it seem to have dropped off a bit in the last few weeks,” he said.
“Hopefully, they can come up a bit during harvest and post harvest.”
It’s still a reasonable year, both yield-wise and price-wise by the looks of things.”
Mr Eckermann says that although it’s unfortunate, this type of weather is just an occupational hazard.
“It’s a part of the job. The weather is something we just have to work with.”
This article is part of National Agriculture Day. For more information go to www.agday.org.au