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Bumper crop hauls farmers from financial brink

Kerry Staight for Landline

Story Added : 06th February 2010

Wudinna in the centre of South Australia's Eyre Peninsula is clearly proud of its agricultural heritage, boasting a giant granite sculpture called Australian Farmer as a centrepiece.

But after three disastrous seasons, many grain growers were starting to wonder whether the region's cropping days were over.

"If this year had been bad, there literally would have almost been wholesale slaughter," said Tim Scholz, the chairman of the Wudinna District Council.

"There would have been a lot of properties where there would have been no option but to sell.

"[Instead] we've had unheard of yields in this country. There's been crops in the old scale of over 20 bags to the acre, which in hectares you're talking over four tonnes a hectare."

Andrew Boylan, who has been farming in the area since he was a teenager, says he was considering leaving the land after his family's debts reached $350,000.

"I'm only in my mid forties and got a lot of overheads, got an overdraft, a young family and there's a lot up and down the coast like us," he said.

"We would have got through, but it would have been very tight. Thank God it didn't happen."

Instead the rain not only fell, it fell at the right time.

While many reliable cropping areas were caught out by heatwaves and downpours late in the growing season, the more marginal but earlier maturing country around Wudinna escaped the worst of it.

Mr Boylan said land that produced less than half a tonne of wheat per hectare the previous season was yielding five times that amount at the end of last year.

"To be in your header and actually reaping it is absolutely incredible - my father came out the other day and jumped in the header and he couldn't believe it," Mr Boylan said.

"To give you an example, last year I was doing about 15, 16 kilometres per hour in my header and this year I'm doing four."

Record crop

The change in fortunes was evident at grain storage sites.

Last season many did not even open because there was nothing to put in them - this time, temporary bunkers were set up to cope with the overflow.

The quantity produced on the Eyre Peninsula has pushed South Australia's harvest to an estimated 7.7 million tonnes - the second biggest on record.

But with grain prices well down on the last couple of years, Wudinna Centacare Counsellor Merrill Lymn said the harvest was unlikely to bring many farmers long-term financial security.

"Yes it's hopeful and yes it's really encouraged us it can rain and it's not all over, but I think it's going to take more than one year to help people just relax a bit," she said.

In the meantime, locals like Yaninee farmer Gregor Wilkins hope their new granite sculpture turns out to be a lucky charm.

"It's certainly worked so far - it could be another rain rock," he said.

"Perhaps it's an omen, perhaps it will bring on more years the same."

- Watch the full Landline report at 12:00pm Sunday on ABC 1.

Story Added by ABC.
Date Added : 06th February 2010

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