Wheat growers are expected to bear the brunt of a five-year record low in winter grain planting this season.
Rising fuel costs and mixed weather have been identified as major causes, global agribanker Rabobank says in its latest winter crop forecast.
Its forecast says the winter cropping area will fall to 23.1 million hectares this season, a fall of 8% on last year and 4.3% below the five-year average.
Wheat planting is expected to fall by 20.4% to 9.8m ha compared to last year and 24% down on the five-year average, to the annual outlook from the bank’s RaboResearch division.
Barley, canola and pulse plantings are expected to increase on last year as they offer growers potentially stronger margins than wheat, says report author and RaboResearch senior grains and oilseeds analyst Vitor Pistoia.
CROP PROJECTIONS BY STATE
- Western Australia: to rise by 5.7% to a record 9.47m ha;
- Queensland: to fall 34.8 % to 1.06m ha;
- NSW: to fall by 29.2 % to 4.82m ha;
- South Australia: nearly stable at 3.99m ha (up 0.3%);
- Victoria: nearly stable at 3.74m ha (up 0.9%).
Pistoia says the differences reflect dry conditions across Queensland and northern NSW with better starts to the season across WA and SA.
UNEVEN START
“Australia enters the 2026-27 winter cropping season with a more uneven and weather-dependent cropping area than in recent years,” he says.
“The season is opening with a clear geographic split across cropping regions: conditions on the northern east coast, particularly in southern Queensland and northern NSW, have been dry through summer and early autumn, leaving limited topsoil moisture and delaying sowing.”
In contrast, Pistoia says, WA, SA, Victoria and southern NSW start the season with average or better soil moisture which allows for earlier seeding (including for canola in WA and SA, which was sown as early as late March).
“This marks a reversal from the past two seasons, when eastern regions of Australia held stronger soil moisture at this time and other parts of the country were waiting for the season to break,” he says.
“Recent rainfall which has fallen across some cropping regions in Queensland and NSW this month, while beneficial, will not be enough to support a full cropping program, as some regions require up to 100 millimetres of rainfall to replenish soil moisture.”
Looking at the new winter cropping season, Pistoia points to a likely “lower growing-season rainfall” with a high risk of El Nino conditions developing during winter and low probability of above-average rainfall across the wheatbelt.
“This means starting-season soil-moisture levels are expected to play a key role in determining yields this season, contributing to greater variability across the cropping belt,” he says.
With a warmer winter predicted for many cropping regions, frost risk may reduce but moisture demand will increase, Pistoia says.
FUEL AND OTHER COSTS
The report says higher costs like global fertiliser and diesel prices due to war in the Middle East were increasing production costs for Australian growers and influencing cropping decisions this quarter.
“These higher costs are encouraging shifts towards lower-input crops and contributing to a reduction in total cropping area,” Pistoia says.
While higher costs are likely to help lower grain production this year, the higher price of diesel may also reduce the amount of global grain on export markets, he says; some regions may choose to supply their local market rather than export it.
“This may potentially slow global grain movements later in the season to ports, providing some underlying support to international grain prices,” Pistoia said.
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