Crop farmers cautiously confident into new season

North Canterbury’s arable growers are optimistic in a time of uncertainty.

Growers, coming off strong 2020 season yields and a mild winter, had every reason to be confident, despite the uncertainty of Covid-19, Federated Farmers North Canterbury arable chairman Roscoe Taggart said.

"It’s easy to feel confident at this time of year, but there’s a lot of year to go.

"Hopefully, things are looking up, but we don’t want to be too keen. You’ve got to look forward, but you can’t control the weather or what happens overseas."

The final harvest data for wheat, barley and oats, across milling, malting and feed, released in the Arable Industry Marketing Initiative Survey report last month, showed a 17% increase in yields across six crops.

compared with 2019, wheat yields were up by an estimated 26%, feed barley was up 12%, milling wheat up 11%, malting barley up 1%, milling oats up 5% and feed oats up 6%, the report said.

Mr Taggart said the figures needed to be put into perspective after "a couple of years of pretty poor yields" and low dairy payouts before that which had led to a drop in grain prices.

"It was just nice to have a half-decent year," he said.

The 2020 North Canterbury season was held up by a lack of rain in November but was followed by near perfect harvest conditions and ideal establishment conditions for the next crops.

The new 2021 planting season followed a mild winter, allowing farmers to get on with sowing and spraying.

But rain was needed soon, Mr Taggart said.

"It’s drier than people think.

"Three or four weeks ago, when we were getting drizzly weather, people thought it was wet, but now there’s very little moisture in the soil."

While arable farmers were not directly affected by Covid-19, the secondary effects were starting to be felt with reduced international demand for specialist vegetable seeds and prime lamb.

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