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Northwestern Farmers attend MDBA consultations
Farmers across the north west of the state attended Murray-Darling Basin Authority consultation meetings in Narrabri and Moree this week, as the round of meetings continues in the wake of the release of the guide to the Draft Plan.
Farmers at the Narrabri meeting expressed similar frustrations to those that had been previoulsy voiced in communities such as Deniliquin and Griffith.
Farmers are concerned that the entire focus of the legislation is on the environment, and that farmers, irrigators and working families are ‘left out’.
They are also concerned about the loss of infrastructure that will accompany the reduction in water extractions, and the loss of value to rural businesses that this will create.
Today the MDBA will meet with farmers in Dalby, then move to Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.
Consultation meetings will be held in the following communities in coming weeks:
November 4th Dubbo and Forbes
November 5th Bourke
November 8th Echuca and Horsham
November 9th Narrandera
A meeting date is yet to be announced for Goondiwindi.
Farming Carbon
Farmers are frequently depicted as a pretty conservative bunch, unwilling to try something new and sceptical about innovation.
But Australian farmers are amongst the most enterprising in the world when it comes to experimenting with and developing new ideas.
Many Aussie farmers are intrigued by the idea of using processed deisel fumes as an adjunct to fertilizer; serving the dual purpose of not releasing fumes into the atmosphere and also reducing the need for nitrogenous fertilziers.
Louisa Kiely is a Director of Carbon Farmers of Australia, and one of the driving forces behind the Carbon Farming Conference in Dubbo this week.
She says there is considerable interest in the potential benefits of carbon farming.
“Literally, as you are taking carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it back into the ground, you are improving the soil structure and the water holding capacity.
“So carbon farmers have the ability to go into drought later and come out sooner”
The meeting starts on Tuesday afternoon with ‘Carbon Farming 101.
And the next two days will focus on the Federal Government plan for carbon farming.
“This will be the first time the Government has come to the regions to discuss how this scheme will work.”
US wine market in decline
Cameron Wilson
A leading US wine consultant says he can see considerable scope for an expansion of Australian share in their market.
This is despite the fact that the Australian dollar is close to parity with the US dollar and the decline of the US wine exports.
President of the US Wine Market Council, John Gillespie says the US market is ’still a market of growth’ despite considerable difficulty in recent months.
He said that Australia is not alone in having a degree of difficulty in maintaining their US market share.
“The relative weakness of the US dollar is making the Australian product more expensive, but this is a problem that is being experienced by other major exporters as well.
“If misery loves company, you have company,” he says.
“Given the current position of global oversupply, you are going to continue to see considerable competition in the bulk market.”
However Mr Gillespie says the long term strategy of Australian wine growers repositioning themselves higher in the US markets is, in his view, the right one.
The Commodities
December wheat futures are currently trading at 670 US cents a bushel, a fall of 13 from yesterday’s close.
November canola futures are down 1.90 on yesterday’s close to 512 Canadian dollars per metric tonne.
And cotton on the New York Board of Trade: the December contract is up 164 points to 115.9 cents a pound.
Wool Market Report
There were a total of 20,152 bales on offer nationally.
The Eastern Market Indicator is up 4 points to 928 cents per kg clean, with 4.5% passed in.
The Northern Indicator, closed at 954 cents.
Techwool trading was the largest buyer at 11.4% followed by Vittera Wool at 7.6%
Looking at the individual micron sales in Sydney:
17 microns are up 4 to 1403
18 microns up 12 to 1279
19 microns up 6 to 1114
20 microns down 8 to 977
21 microns down 9 to 950
22 microns down 5 to 914
23 microns down 1 to 884
Crossbreds: Fine microns had a downward correction of 10 cents leaving 27 to 30 microns unchanged.
Oddments: Buyers are pushing all categories lifting Locks by 10 to 15 cents Crutchings 20 cents and Stains 10 cents.
Sales next week – there are a total of 51,916 bales on offer nationally, with 14,007 bales on offer in Sydney next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Rural Notices
Wongarbon Cropping Field Day – 2010
Farmers across the region are encouraged to head to Wongarbon next Monday to talk cropping…
The field day commences at 9.15 am, at John Kelly’s ‘Hillview’ shed.
Topics up for discussion include: NVT trials – wheat and barley varieties will be under the spotlight
What to do with canola this year? Windrow? Desiccate? Direct head?
Summer fallow management
Stripe rust management
Dual purpose wheats
Canola varieties
A barbecue lunch will be provided.
Take the Mitchell Highway east from Dubbo; take the right hand turn down River Road, 500 metres before Wongarbon.
All inquiries to Greg Brooke (0437 140 577) or Scott Boyd (0409 985 800)