North Star producer struggles with durum crop

The couple grow faba beans, chickpeas, bread wheat and durum wheat on about 1000 hectares of cultivation near Goondiwindi, which was originally a sheep property of Brigalow-belah and wilga country.

Like most southern growers they suffered a “very dry” summer which added to their worries as they struggled to find anybody to buy their durum wheat.

They held their durum wheat on-farm until May when they put it into Graincorp storage at Moree in the hope that the market would soon kick. 

In the end they had to sell it as pig feed, Mr Mitchell said. 

“Before that nobody wanted to buy it at any stage and then the feed fellas woke up,” he said.

“We sold some to the export market and it was slightly under what we got for feed grain which was not good.

“(The durum market) has been good to us over 30 years but this year we sold our good durum to Cameron’s for pig feed because the world market for durum was way down.”

Australian Durum Company director Peter Howard said some growers in northern New South Wales had struggled with quality issues and problems with white grains disease which may have affected their trading.

But he said the market was strong looking ahead.

“It’s possibly been down on last year but it’s starting to firm up,” he said.

“The international market is changing because of dry conditions in the US and Canada.”

The sale struggles didn’t stop Mr Mitchell from putting durum wheat back in the ground this year alongside faba beans, chickpeas and bread wheat.

Mr Mitchell said while they hadn’t had much rain, the crops were looking promising.

In a bid to better utilise carbon Mr Mitchell has been retaining stubble and even made his own crimper. He said the machine had keep the stubble low on the top of the ground which has improve the soil health.