Ongoing widespread drought conditions across eastern Australia is now being described as one in 20-year occurrence, with others saying it’s the worst in a generation.
Impacts of the drought are as dramatic as they are devastating.
Farmers are without feed, few are expected to harvest crops and water supplies are running sort.
Grain trucks that would normally be moving grain from farm to port are now having to move grain from Victoria and even SA.
Queensland has gone from exporter to grain importer.
Australia’s beef exports for the Jan/July period in 2018 are almost 642,000t which is 13 per cent up on last year.
Dry weather is threatening those few crops that were planted in southern Queensland.
Grain prices have continued to soar as Australia’s crop outlook deteriorates further as well as the worsening prospects for the European and Black Sea wheat harvests.
Prices for new crop wheat into Brisbane have climbed to $450 a tonne with barley fetching $425/t.
ASX January wheat futures, which are reflective of the new crop harvest price, rallied by $24 to $393/t, an increase of 7pc for the week.