Drought Stricken Australia Importing Canadian Wheat

Nov 27, 2019

A Weather and Market Analyst points to the drought in Australia as an area he sees opportunity for Western Canadian farmers, as the country faces its third consecutive year of these burdensome conditions.

Bruce Burnett with MarketsFarm spoke to farmers and industry stakeholders at the Alberta Wheat, Barley and Pulse Commission's Next Level Farming meeting in held in Vulcan on Tuesday, November 12.

Burnett says eastern Australia faced a significant drought last year, but the West was able to produce an average crop, which was where most of their exports originated from.

However this year, Burnett describes the conditions as a "double barrel" drought facing both regions.

"The main livestock industry in Australia is on the eastern side of the country, so they're going to be very tight on feed grains," he explained."Even going to probably import some Canadian wheat there for starch production."

Burnett says Australia is usually a competitor to Canada and notes western Australia is probably not going to have enough grain to export anywhere this year.

However, he says they've also been a customer this year.

"In the first two months of this crop year, they've been the sixth largest customer for Canadian wheat, which is not permanent because this has never happened before, but certainly shows you how deep this drought has been in Australia."

Burnett says the drought in Australia shows opportunities for not only wheat producers here at home in the Prairies, but also for pulses, canola, and barley.

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