Mid-season snapshot

With just a few months until crushing is scheduled to come to a close in most cane growing districts, we check in to see how the season has fared so far.

*statistics reflect the week ending 17 August 2024.

Mossman

Chairman Matthew Watson

We started late due to transport issues with getting our sugarcane trucked to Mulgrave Mill following the closure of Mossman Mill. There have been quite a lot of teething problems with getting the cane unloaded and through the mill. We’ve also had some breakdowns and a lot of wet weather that have held up mill operations. We’ve lost a few drivers during rain stoppages because if they can’t work, they tend to go elsewhere.

There were some hiccups at the start, but it’s definitely getting better. More recently, things have started to ramp up. Each week is better than it was the week before, but it’s still very slow and I’m not sure if we’re going to get the crop off yet. Trying to keep the growers’ spirits up has been a bit difficult. It’s been an extremely tough year for everyone.

Tableland

Chairman Claude Santucci

The Tableland mill commenced crushing in the last week of May 2024 with an anticipated crop estimate of 890,000 tonnes. This comprises of approximately 860,000 tonnes of Tableland cane and 30,000 tonnes of former Mossman Mill contracted cane grown in the Julatten area, which has now been contracted to Tableland Mill.

This would have been the largest crop to be crushed at Tableland Mill since its opening in 1998 and would present some challenges to crush in a reasonable season length.

However, as the crush has progressed, disappointingly we are seeing a significant drop in the forecast crop estimates (10–15 %) , which may alleviate the pressure of a very late end to the season’s crush. This decline in yield is believed to be because of the great amount of rain (almost twice the average annual rainfall at 1500mm) received during Cyclone Jasper and the remainder of the wet season, which caused a large amount of waterlogging in many paddocks.

The estimate has now been revised down to 851,000 tonnes and an estimated end of crush date of 13 December. Tableland Mill has been performing quite well to date with an availability of 97%, which I believe is the highest in the state.

Our main concern at the moment is that the weather stays relatively dry through to the end of December so that we can take the whole crop off without the risk of any standover cane.

Cairns Region

Chairman Stephen Calcagno

It hasn’t been a perfect year, far from it and we are very much behind because of persistent, annoying rain. It’s held up the planting as well, which will affect next year’s season.

Harvesters are having trouble keeping up when the Mulgrave mill is running. Mill performance has generally been good, but the mill has had ongoing issues with number 7 boiler.

The Cairns district got hit by flooding from ex TC Jasper in December, and then there were waterlogged fields from February on, which has affected the crop, you can’t deny it. It’s 15 to 20 per cent down on other years, so it is actually the perfect season to be also crushing Mossman’s cane. Growers are doing their best and when it’s fine, they’re focused on getting their planting done and looking forward to next year.

Innisfail

Chairman Joseph Marano

After a less than average season last year, growers were looking for a prominent season this year. The rainfall from ex TC Jasper in December didn’t help and 2024 has turned into a disaster.

Not much cane has been cut, not much area has been planted and wet weather from February to June was less than ideal. Tonnes per hectare and CCS are below average.

Hopefully growers can soldier on through it, but it’s going to take a huge effort on behalf of the mill, the harvesters and the growers for a turnaround in 2025.

Tully

Chairman Bryce Macdonald

The tropical north has endured an unusually wet year. Even though the total amount of rain for the calendar year has exceeded 4400mm, it is the number of days of recorded rain that has been most problematic. Tully is known for its rainfall, but up to 13 August there was 160 days of recorded rain out of 266 days.

The season started on 18 June, which is three days after the traditional start date of 15 June. In the previous two years, we were fortunate enough to be able to start in the last week of May. Early season start dates tend to assist next year’s crop, particularly if the season is going to proceed past the last week of November.

To finish the season in a reasonable time frame, we are going to have to have everything on our side, including favourable weather and mill availability. The current estimate is 76.81 tonnes per hectare, down from 86.43 tonnes per hectare from the original estimate. The mill has the potential to process the entire 2024 crop, which will probably finish up between 2,100,000 and 2,200,000 tonnes.

It has been a challenging season so far, but farmers remain optimistic about the rest of the year. As daylight hours get longer and warmer, the ground will dry out more rapidly and allow farmers to get some paddock work done.

Herbert River

Chairman Chris Bosworth

The crush started very slowly. Between the impacts of wet weather and industrial action, we are way behind where we should be.

After this last rainfall event, it’s going to take a while before we can get to full crushing capacity and continued industrial action only exacerbates the problem.

We need minimal delays from here on in to get our crop off. We’ve talked to the unions and Wilmar management and tried to impress on them that there is a thirdparty knock-on effect of their actions, which impacts our whole district.

Burdekin

Chairman Owen Menkens

We had a wet start to the crush and then we have had industrial action as well. The industrial action has cost us more than a week and it is still not resolved.

“Pioneer and Invicta mills were running poorly, which has extended the crush as well. We are working with Wilmar to transfer cane to equalise the end date as best as we can.

Unfortunately, the Burdekin received widespread heavy rain on 11 and 12 August, leading to a two-week stop of the crush which is very concerning. The other issue is now the cane will grow on, so the crush is now on track for a late December finish.

Proserpine

Chairman Glenn Clarke

It’s been a frustrating start to crushing, which was delayed for two weeks because the mill was not ready on time.

Since then, crushing has been slow, hampered by industrial action, poor mill performance and two weeks lost so far due to wet weather. The delays are frustrating growers and harvesting groups alike.

The crush finish date is pushing out to midto-late December at this stage.

Mackay

Director Joseph Borg, spokesman for Mackay

After a bumpy start, Racecourse and Farleigh mills have settled into a good crushing rate, but Marian Mill continues to be a real problem. It’s the biggest mill in the area and it’s crushed the least amount of cane due to mechanical issues.

We’ve had a few wet weather stoppages, including a three-day stop in August, but the reason we are so far behind is milling performance, especially at Marian. It’s been a real problem child.

CCS content is high, and the crop is currently at 106.8% of the original estimate, but we expect that to fall off during the back end of the year.

Plane Creek

Chairman Kevin Borg, spokesman for Plane Creek

It’s been a very disappointing start to the Plane Creek crushing season. It’s been one thing after another including the rolling industrial dispute. This has been exacerbated by several rain events early in the crush, and the reality that the mill was not mechanically ready, with repeated breakdowns occurring and delaying processing. It’s been a very rough start.

It’s looking more and more like this will be the fourth year in a row we’ll leave standover cane. The crop is larger than initial estimates and further rain will only see this increase. Current estimates would add another two weeks to the crush, which is already behind by about 20–25%.

Milling capacity and reliability are integral to grower confidence and seeing these rectified would give growers the assurance they need to further invest in the industry. It’s frustrating that it’s been such a disappointing start, given that sugar prices are still at a reasonable level.

Bundaberg

Chairman Mark Pressler

We’ve had a good start and there has been good mill performance. Bundaberg Mill did some pre-season cane before the core season started which ironed out some of the bugs.

CCS was a bit ordinary to begin with, and we had a damp start. More recently we’ve had cool, fine weather that’s brought the CCS up and things are progressing okay.

There are some growers who are keen to start the crush earlier because it fits in with their overall farming program.

Isis

Chairman Mark Mammino

We’ve had a slow start with abnormally high mill breakdowns mixed with wet weather. Unfortunately, harvesting stopped mid-August for just over a week with reports of over 120mm of rain across the region.

It’s a reasonable sized crop with Maryborough and Isis sugarcane combined.

It would be good to get an uninterrupted crush moving forward.

Rocky Point

Chairman Greg Zipf

We’ve actually got quite a good crop in Rocky Point this year. Probably 35% of that crop was standover. We had a lot of rainfall in the early part of 2024, which in some cases was detrimental to the smaller cane and low lying areas. We did lose some cane to flooding across the district. About 1 or 2 per cent of the total crop was affected by the continual wet weather and in some cases cane was completely lost.

The season was scheduled to start on 1 July but it was too wet and it was rescheduled for a start on the 15 July. The mill then advised us a couple of days prior that they were not ready to start, and it was put back to 22 July. It was very frustrating for growers to not actually get up and running – our start date is written into the CSA and they should have been ready on 1 July. We lost a whole week of dry weather. When we actually got going, we had two weeks of dry conditions, but the mill was only crushing at about 50% available time and they had multiple breakdowns.

In the second week of August 100 millimetres of rain fell across the district which ceased harvesting for nine days. When we got going again, we started up under very wet conditions and a lot of the growers were not able to harvest their preferred crop. Growers actually harvested one-year-old cane instead of two-year-old cane in most cases.

Conditions have since dried out and most growers have now re-entered the paddock cutting two-year-old cane but on average the crop is probably tending down slightly from original estimate. CCS is tracking at 13.7.

I am concerned that we will be leaving standover in the field again unless the mill reduces its lost time. We have a long way to go.