SYDNEY, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) — A severe and ongoing drought means crop production in Australia’s eastern states will be short millions of tonnes compared to the previous year, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARES) on Tuesday.
For the states most acutely impacted by the drought, New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland, crop production is expected to be 46 and 38 percent lower respectively on last year’s figures.
This year’s forecast 3.89 million tonne winter crop in NSW, which includes wheat, barley, canola and oats, is barely a quarter of the 14.78 million tonne crop produced by the state in 2010-11.
However, on the other side of the country in the state of Western Australia (WA), crop production is set to rise 12 percent due to favourable growing conditions.
"The very poor conditions in most cropping regions in NSW and Queensland have been partly offset by forecast above-average yields in WA, following favourable rainfall in late autumn and winter," ABARES Executive Director Steve Hatfield-Dodds said.
Overall the national crop production will fall by 12 percent from last year to 33.2 million tonnes.
While much of the grain grown in Australia is exported to countries like China, this year some of the product from WA’s bumper crop will go to subsidising the domestic market in the East.