Cottoning on to no chance of picking crop
IT’S the golden crop that farmers can touch but can’t harvest.
This year’s La Nina has driven record cotton yields, prompting a near-doubling in export value in the month to August, from $468m to $879m.
However, this comes as little comfort to cotton farmers Jon Elder and Karin Stark in Narromine, central NSW. The rain, while a boon for the plants, has stopped Mr Elder and Ms Stark from picking the cotton because the ground is too wet for machinery.
“This is the first year we’ve ever failed to meet our contracts,” Mr Elder said.
It’s not only this year’s income at risk, however. Mr Elder’s bigger concern is next year’s harvest.
In a normal year, Mr Elder starts harvesting cotton in the second week of April and plants new crops in October and November. He is now facing the near-impossible task of condensing more than six months of work down to less than three weeks.
“The window for planting is rapidly closing. In our part of the world, average yields start to drop off pretty quickly after mid-November,” he said
The spot price for cotton hit an all-time high in May around $US1.5 per pound, up from $US0.8 at the same time in 2021, according to Nasdaq.
On top of bumper harvests, a low Aussie dollar has made exports highly competitive across all industries.
Industry peak body Cotton Australia chief Adam Kay said this year’s harvest has been Australia’s “largest ever”. “The year before was probably around half (of this year’s), and the year before was around 10 per cent of that,” he said.
Raw cotton was Australia’s 10th most valuable merchandise export in September, up from 81st six months earlier.