After years of drought in parts of Australia this year’s grain harvest looks set to produce a bumper crop for many regions. Last year Western Australia produced 6.5 million tonnes of grain crops, however, thanks to favourable weather conditions this year’s crop looks set to almost double that. 

Grain handler and marketer CBH said estimates range from 9 to 11 million tonnes in the West. CBH manager of grain operations, Max Johnson, said, "The last five or six weeks we've had some pretty good rain over most of the wheatbelt, and so I think we've now been able to push that yield factor up somewhat and so we should be in towards getting close to the ten million tonnes mark."

In South Australia, where last year’s harvest was the largest on record, growers are expecting a good harvest, although not as large as last year’s. Significant rainfall in the South could still produce an extremely successful crop.

However, analysts yesterday revealed that Australian wheat prices could come under pressure from supplies from the Black Sea region. Press group Reuters reported yesterday that Australian farmers could come under pressure while holding back new-crop sales in the hope of securing better prices.

New-crop Australian prime wheat is quoted at around A$268 on the west coast. Peter Rizzo, managing director of Australian FCStone, told an industry meeting in Melbourne, "Australian values will come under pressure, absolutely, as we have got to export 73 percent of our crop. It could be 75 percent if we have a bigger crop."