The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) March Crop Report gave us our first solid look at how the summer cropping season went for northern producers. Sorghum is by far the majority crop, and interestingly, most is being exported these days.
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The sorghum crop is almost exclusively produced in New South Wales and Queensland. The strength of the acreage and yield relies on the northern summer rains, and for the second year in a row, conditions have been favourable for the most part.Last year Australia produced its largest-ever sorghum crop, with 2.64 million tonnes harvested, at an average yield of 4.2t/ha. This year growing conditions were not as optimal as the previous year with a 14% decline in yield offsetting the 8% increase in acreage sown. Figure 1 shows the 2.45 million tonnes expected to be produced this year will be the fourth-highest on record, and the third-highest achieved yield.We can also see in figure 1 that sorghum plantings are highly variable. In 2019-20 just 204,000 hectares were sown to sorghum, and this number nearly tripled in 2020-21. Unlike winter crops, which are often sown regardless of the timing of rains, in a dry year sorghum crops may not be sown at all. In a good year, the opportunity ...
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