Reports says South Australia poised for its biggest crop yield in 2010
South Australia is all set for a bumper season as the state government announced that farmers in the region would harvest a total of 9.62 million tonnes, the biggest crop yield ever for the state since the 9.4 million tonnes recorded in 2001.
Premier Mike Rann said on Friday that he expects the record harvest to stir more activities for the area's regional economies and spur further export growth in South Australia.
He reminded though that the positive prospect could still be affected by the growing threat of locust infestation.
According to the latest South Australian Crop and Pasture report, the state's above-average rainfall in the season and its ideal growing environment all conspired for a potential bumper yield that could fetch a total value of $2.4 billion from four million hectares.
Mr Rann said that South Australian farmers were blessed with good growing conditions in the past few months and "timely rainfall during September and October, together with ongoing cool to mild temperatures, enabled crops to grow in near ideal conditions."
The SA Premier said that in 2209/10, the state's field crop rich harvest delivered a growth value of up to 24 percent into the economy and more improvements were being projected in light of the latest estimates on SA's crop yields.
Mr Rann said that lat year alone, the farm-gate value of field crops soared to $1.5 billion and well beyond the state's 10-year average, paving the way for a much better 2010/11 result projection that would greatly benefit the state economy.
As for the South Australian Farmers Federation, the record harvest would enable many SA farmers to recover from debts and losses incurred from previous harvesting seasons due to droughts and soft prices as federation president Peter White reminded that the last time growers realised reasonable profits from their yields was in 2004.
Barring any threats of locust damages this year, SA farmers are poised to recover from the impending record production and encouraging market prices for their crops as Mr White stressed that a reasonable run this season would allow farmers to cut back on debt and make considerable progress.