There is so much going on in Ag markets at the moment, anything that is written on a Monday is potentially out of date by Tuesday. Today we are going to look at something which won’t go out of date quickly, but still has significant impacts on grain prices; that is local Supply.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) released their quarterly Crop Report at their recent conference. The Crop Report is an important estimate of how much crop has gone into the ground, and crucially, how much grain and oilseed has been harvested.
The crop production figures in the March Crop Report will likely see some minor adjustments going forward, but with almost all the crop now having been harvested, it should be pretty close to the final figures.
The big wheat crop has seemingly come to fruition, with the March Crop Report adding a little bit of cream to the harvest. In what is a trend across the big three commodities, the soft finish in Victoria (up 5%) and to a lesser extent in WA saw a small increase in yield estimates.
Figure 1 shows the national wheat crop coming in at the third highest level on record at 35.585 million tonnes.
Barley yields in Victoria were much stronger than expected in the December report. Barley production in Victoria is estimated to be 3.1mmt, up 22% on the December estimate. This pushed national barley production to a record high of 16.3mmt (figure 2).
Canola production received a solid bump in yield estimates in Victoria and South Australia, as well as WA. This has pushed total canola production to an estimated 7.69mmt, the second highest on record, up 6% on the December estimate.
With the 2025-26 crop done dusted, there will be some question marks around what we will see in 2026-27 when it comes to final production. Be it inputs, outputs, trade flows or seasonal conditions there are a number of competing factors influencing commodity market outlooks. As the market begins to adjust to the rapid changes seen in the last 10 days, a picture of what to expect moving forward will become clearer.
What does it mean?
The big crop should mean there is still plenty of grain on farm and uncertainty in the global economy might have some growers holding out for higher prices.
Key Points
- The ABARES Crop Report lifted expected production levels for the big three crops.
- Plantings for 2025 could likely be impacted by rising costs and market reaction for different grain and oilseed markets.
- There should be plenty of cereal stored on farms looking to take advantage of price rises.
Click on figure to expand
Click on figure to expand
Click on figure to expand
Data sources: ABARES, Mecardo
