WHILE the NSW 2009-10 maize crop is up 4000 hectares from last year to 19,000ha this season, industry experts say the longer term trend has been for it to be dropping significantly in volume.
Industry and Investment (I and I) NSW figures estimate about 66 per cent of this year’s corn crop sits in isolated spots across the Liverpool Plains, and further north around Narrabri and Moree.
District agronomist at Coleambally in the Riverina and executive member of the Maize Association of Australia, Kieran O’Keefe, said the northern parts of NSW were the main growing areas due to the better seasons, higher water allocations and more flexible marketing options.
Mr O’Keefe said the big cutbacks in plantings in the south were mostly due to poor returns for growers.
“The growers here just want to be farmers, not water traders,” he said.
“But when prices have been as high as $1000 per megalitre for water, as opposed to a maize crop that is returning $200 a megalitre at best – well, it’s not rocket science.”
Last year Mr O’Keefe said two-thirds of the water on-farm was sold, with only one-third going into crop operations.
Fortunately, water prices have since come back to closer to $150/Ml in 2010, due to decreases in water demand in the south.
The Riverina, in its eighth consecutive drought-affected year, is growing only 12 per cent of the State’s crop.
The crop’s decline in the north has essentially come off the back of a marketing disaster caused by supply and demand problems in the 2007-08 and 2008-09 summer cropping seasons.
Quest Commodity Brokers Pty Ltd principal, Jayne Barker, Gunnedah, said many cotton growers who had been unhappy with cotton returns switched to corn for those seasons and ultimately created an imbalance in the crop’s supply and demand.
“The end result was a massively over-supplied corn market in northern NSW, and consequent marketing nightmares for growers,” she said.
“So, last season’s poor corn marketing experiences, when compared to the current opportunity to price
cotton at $500 per bale, has seen a swing back to cotton going in, and corn being taken out (of the rotation).”
She said ironically, with demand now outweighing supply, corn prices were currently better at $245 to $255 a tonne ex-farm to the Liverpool Plains for feed corn.
There is a $30 premium for grit.
Mr O’Keefe said it would be “terrific” to see the industry pick up and for a greater demand to be apparent across the State.
“Maize is a critical crop and a good summer option that can be beneficial in terms of profit and water use efficiency,” he said.
“It’s also relatively low risk in terms of being fairly resilient to disease and pests.”
Maize is flexible for its variety of uses, but agronomists remind growers to plan their marketing strategies well in advance as demand for Australian maize is heavily reliant on domestic markets.
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