Insight Focus
The recent monsoon brought heavy rainfall and flooding. Despite the weather, the crop is recovering, but concerns remain about the ongoing cyclone season and a shortage of harvesters, with 800 hectares currently without coverage. Efforts are underway to address these issues.
What are you up to on the farm at present?
The monsoon finally arrived on January 27, and it got very wet very quickly on the farm. Over the course of just four days, we received 1,800mm of rain and it’s been raining on and off ever since.
While it caused flooding in the area, it was nothing like what we experienced last year, when Cyclone Jasper hit. The cane was more advanced this year, so with a bit of sunshine it should pick itself up, and hopefully, we won’t see any major impact on the crop.
Unfortunately, growers further south in the Herbert River and Burdekin regions were hit extremely hard by unprecedented flooding and have a long road to recovery ahead. It’s too early to tell the full extent of the damage, but early estimates are putting crop losses at around 1 million tonnes.
On a positive note, I recently led a tour of 27 growers to Thailand, where they got to experience the Thai milling and farming systems firsthand. It was a great trip, and the mostly young group of growers were extremely impressed with what they saw. The scale and innovation of the Thai industry gave our young growers confidence in Mitr Phol, the Thai company that operates our MSF sugar mills.
We hope it also gave Mitr Phol executives confidence in the next generation of Australian sugarcane farmers.
What stage is your crop at?
Despite all the rain, the crop is coming along nicely. As I write this, we’ve had just two days of sunshine following weeks of wet weather and already the cane is starting to pick itself up.
If the hot, humid weather continues I’m confident we’ll have a good crop to harvest come June.
What are your biggest concerns at present?
My biggest concern is probably that we have another eight to 10 weeks of cyclone season to get through. As we speak, Cyclone Zelia is battering Western Australia’s Pilbara region. While that won’t impact us here in Queensland, it just shows that you’re never safe from cyclones at this time of year. We’ll just have to hope the weather gods are feeling kind.
Apart from the weather, there is real concern about the shortage of harvesters in our area as we head towards this year’s crush.
Another harvesting contractor recently exited the industry, and we now have around 800 hectares not covered by a harvesting group. We’re taking steps to address this issue, though, and will be working with MSF and other districts to find solutions.
