From the Chair

By Owen Menkens, Chairman CANEGROWERS

It has been a long year and unfortunately the crush is not yet over for some of our growers.

This is difficult to handle for many given the sugar price is around $650 a tonne.

The wet weather has made ground conditions very challenging with the CCS levels dropping to a point where the viability of harvesting comes into question.

The damage done to paddocks from harvesting in the wet will have long term effects on soil structure which will reduce crops in the future as well as cause issues regarding fallow rotations if growers are forced to standover cane.

We saw after the 2010 crush crops reduced significantly in the 2012, 2013 and 2014 years as well as the extremely difficult 2011 standover years. We have received above average rainfall but nothing anywhere like we did in 2010.

The other issue is that as the CCS gets lower the cost is borne by the grower under the cane price formula.

The long season is not only to do with the weather however.

This season has seen a big reduction in mill availability in many districts and crushing rates with breakdowns becoming increasingly common. I know it has been difficult to get staff this year, but this doesn’t fully explain the situation.

The breakdowns have extended the season in many areas with Rocky Point being an extreme example of this as they did not start until October.

Many of these issues have a root cause that can be traced back up to 10 years ago. Persistent under investment in milling infrastructure has seen our milling assets come under strain and this drags down the profitability of the whole sector.

It has been proven time and again that the optimum crushing time is between 20 and 25 weeks. Once the season extends beyond this the crop falls away dramatically, and the impact can be compounding in future years because of later ratooning and wet weather affects.

Further, the later a crush finishes or earlier it starts can have extreme effects on the CCS levels. We need to work together across the supply chain to get the cane off efficiently and safely for the whole industry to survive and thrive.

There are great opportunities out there in both the world sugar price and the future uses of the sugar cane plant.

We need a strong and reliable milling sector to harness those opportunities, and this will only come with greater throughput which in turn requires better reliability

Growers and their families are committed to this industry and so too are harvesting, milling, terminal and marketing staff.

I hope that as we have done in the past we can come together to make 2023 a prosperous one for all.