Australia keeping a weather eye on Brexit progress
Heading Down Under to Australia to visit some of the family after we finally managed to get our harvest wrapped up, the last thing I thought about putting on my packing list was a pair of wellies.
But when our arrival was met with the sort of weather conditions which had me wondering if the plane had flown round in a big circle and then deposited us back at Glasgow airport, I was soon realising the error of my ways.
However, our own discomfort was soon put firmly in perspective by the sight of close-to-harvest grain crops standing under water as what they have been calling the “big wet” continued.
And while the droughtbreaking rains of March had been welcomed with open arms – as they transformed the El Nino dust bowl conditions of the last two years into an unusually lush growing season – the rain’s continued persistence was soon proving to our Australian cousins that you can indeed get too much of a good thing.
With the record-breaking rainfall of September continuing into October, the floods have turned earlier predictions of a bumper harvest on their head and both quality and yield are likely to suffer a severe down grading, at least in some of the main grain growing regions around the Murray river which snakes the border of Victoria and New South Wales.
In fact, many producers are considering either grazing the crop or cutting it for livestock feed rather than going to the expense of combining it – although even these options will require several dry weeks.
However, for cattle and sheep breeders the rainfed good news has been continuing – while the wet conditions have been turning heavily grazed pastureland to mud, prices have been soaring to unheard of levels at markets around the country as stockmen (and some grain growers) compete to buy scarce animals.
After years of parched grazing meant that there were too many mouths around the country to be fed, the boot in the livestock sector is suddenly on the other foot.
The fact that national sheep flock and cattle herd numbers have fallen to historically low levels – with the sheep numbers declining from close to 180 million 50 years ago to the current level of around 70 million – has seen keen competition among those wanting to re-stock.
This has meant that both store and breeding cattle and sheep have been in high demand to utilise all the extra grazing and, in all probability, a portion of the downgraded grain crop.
This has fuelled the record prices being made at markets around the country, with young cattle making up to £3 per kilo liveweight through local markets, and commercial breeding sheep making up to £300 a head, as everyone competes for fewer animals.
However, while prices for finished stock were also described as good, they haven’t yet come close to achieving the hikes reached in the store and breeding rings, so just as back home, investing money in store and breeding stock remains a big gamble – and there are fears that many lambs might be too heavy to meet the specs required.
On the broader front, even on the other side of the world the political and economic ramifications of the hard/soft Brexit debate couldn’t be ignored.
Viewed from abroad, while the recent fluctuations in the value of sterling might boost our prices on the home market, the extent of some of the plunges in the exchange rate made me keenly aware of the fact that the value of our capital assets had also taken a substantial grubbing in the world market terms.
But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the amount of goodwill on display among Aussie producers for hopes of re-kindling some of the close trading relationships we had had with our antipodean cousins in the past.
While this is welcome after what could easily be construed as 40 years of neglect on our part, as far as trade in farm goods is concerned, the truth is that the balance must lie firmly in Australia’s favour.
So I guess that, come rain or shine, Australia will continue to surprise us.