Wheat growers’ harvest plans

Press, 4 April 1985, Page 3

Wheat growers’ harvest plans

Farm Editor Growers could plan for an on-farm price for most milling wheat from the 1986 harvest of only $278 to $2BO a tonne, an arable farming industry leader has said. Mr George Hutton, chairman of the agriculture section of North Canterbury Federated Farmers, was commenting on the 1986 wheat marketing plan released by the Wheat Board. (A full report of the plan appears in the Farm and Station pages today.) In releasing the scheme the board published an indication of the f.o.b. price to growers which would be established by the new pricing formula relating the New Zealand price to the current Australian standard white wheat f.o.b. price. In late March this year the New Zealand equivalent for the No. 1 milling grade would be $333 a tonne f.0.b., the board said. But growers needed an estimate of their likely net returns for wheat from the 1986 harvest on which to base sowing decisions which were imminent, said Mr Hutton. Because of the change in Wheat Board payment policy from free on rail, at nominal railheads, to free on board (f.0.b.) at nominated collection points, certain deductions had to be

made from the $333 a tonne figure. For any grower who could not produce No. 1 milling grade (Oroua, Otane, Kotare, and Weka varieties) the average milling payment for the most popular varieties, Rongotea and Advantage, would be discounted 5 per cent. Mr Hutton said the average costs in North Canterbury between farm gate and f.o.b. were $27 a tonne. Also the farmer must in his estimations deduct the levies payable on wheat of $2.80 a tonne. Moreover, as the average crop was harvested at 14 per cent moisture, some weight deduction back to the 12 per cent acceptable figure should be allowed. The resulting $278 to $2BO a tonne was surprisingly close to the present season’s f.o.b. price of $274, said Mr Hutton, and so growers had to give plenty of thought to the inputs to domestic milling wheat growing and the alternatives. He said he was disappointed that the new scheme did not increase the allowable general-purpose export quota of 25,000 tonnes nationally. A special purpose utility grade wheat with a higher yield potential, even at $220 a tonne on-farm, might give growers a better return than a milling wheat.