The NSW harvest is underway for many of the State’s croppers with greatly improved yields expected in some areas compared to previous years, says the Minister for Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald.
Although drought conditions remained a serious challenge for some farmers, particularly in parts of southern NSW, expectations were much higher for many crops this year, Mr Macdonald said.
“It is an extremely mixed bag for our cropping sector this year – the canola crop is expected to be the highest since 2004, while unfortunately around Hay, Finley and Jerilderie, there has been some crop failure,” he said.
“The estimated winter crop to be harvested is 8.63 million tonnes from around 5.08 million hectares, which is a big improvement on last year’s 2.99 million tonnes of crop which was harvested from 2.68 million hectares."
Mr Macdonald said while coming weeks would be extremely busy throughout the winter cropping belt, it was important farmers maintained their vigilance in looking for and reporting locusts to their local Rural Lands Protection Boards.
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