It Is Broke, So Fix It

By Kevin Borg, Chairman, CANEGROWERS Mackay
No doubts, there isn’t a grower out there who wants to be crushing past mid-November, let alone into January.
It’s a path that is dogging industry profitability and making a mockery of agronomic best practices.
Nonetheless, as we moved into the new year Plane Creek came to a wet end for the 2024 Crush on 3 January, leaving some 150 to 200,000 tonne—or in excess of 10% of the crop—as standover. In Mackay, both Farleigh and Racecourse had ceased operation for 2024 just prior to Christmas in response to wet weather. Farleigh mill was also suffering from boiler issues at the time. Marian restarted after the wet weather event, continuing to into the New Year with fluctuating production, with final cane delivered on 13 January.
I have heard rumblings of growers wanting representatives to just call an end to the crush when it should end, in mid-November.
It’s about the bigger picture. CANEGROWERS has been working for its members for just shy of 100 years, and we’ve learnt that it is vital to consider the needs of all members, and their survival.
In this case, it is a question of cash flow. Cane quality may be reduced, but there remains a capacity to continue crushing for lots of reasons. Growers have bills to pay and debts to service. We depend on getting as much of our crop away as we can. For many, that critical last 20% is make or break. Therefore, it would be irresponsible for representatives to make a decision for the whole, when the impacts on some could be dire.
We know that each grower will look at their own circumstances to make that critical call about when it is time to call an end to the harvest on their farms. It is for the grower to make that call at the individual level. We represent almost 800 family agribusinesses, and this is definitely not a case of one size fits all: growers need the opportunity to be able to make the best out of a bad situation whilst mills are still crushing.
However, as grower reps, we will continue to speak out with vigour and volume on the impacts to growers of repeated extended harvest.
There is solid evidence from work done by our research organisation pointing to the reasons why we need to have the harvest wrapped up around the second week of November. We need Sugar Research Australia to revisit and update research done in the 90s, when continuous crushing was introduced and have it presented to all industry participants.
Continuous crushing was a shift in practice. Once, we would crush across five days, then harvest and processing would cease for the weekend, when the mill would have two days for maintenance. these were days where milling reliability was at its peak in the majority mills.
Long crushes are pushing the boundaries of farming best practices, impacting on crop and soil management and making it challenging to maintain productivity and profitability. Taking these agronomic decisions out of our hands raises cause for concern. It also adds to mental health and fatigue, with people not getting time away from the job as expected by any employee or business owner in this country.
I have heard mutterings of starting the season earlier, but the reality is this: any earlier than June, the crop in most cases has not matured, and rainfall is a historical fact at that time of year. I contend this would lead to large amounts of cane being condemned as they are with a late harvest.
Calls for better compensation for growers when mills underperform could be a band-aid, but realistically, in those cases where there is compensation embedded in agreements these do not adequately cover the lost profitability for growers and harvesters. The best outcome is and will always be that our mills repair the woes of their ways and take action to have the industry get back on its feet.
Our forefathers set up systems and structures in the industry that served it well, with equitable harvest management arrangements for growers and millers, with a strong focus on the collective good. We need to make good use of those mutual arrangements. We can only do that with a strong and unified grower representative voice. We need to cooperate to ensure all sectors remain viable: grower, harvester and miller.
The only real solution to the industry’s predicament is mills that can operate at a reasonable capacity.

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Empty afternoon bins. Photo credit: Kirili Lamb
Young cane

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