Chong dissects grains outlook

Mr Chong is a senior analyst with the Rabobank Food and Agribusiness Research and Advisory and spoke to Darling Downs growers at a breakfast on Friday.

He said grain prices in Australia were very high based on historical standards, with sorghum sitting around $300 a tonne; however, it was not necessarily the same story in other markets around the world.

Given global factors, Mr Chong said Australia's sorghum price needed to come back and rationalise in the long term.

From a US and global perspective, prices had come off over the past six to 12 months for wheat, which was very different to what was being seen in the local market.

"We are expecting global or US wheat prices to slightly tick higher as we head into the beginning of 2016, the same sort of things goes for corn," he said.

"That's important for us because we may well have seen the bottoming-out here of the global price declines."

Ben Girle, Rabobank, Toowoomba, chats over coffee with Lindsay and Shelley Krieg, Brookstead. Click on the image to view a gallery from the event.

The strengthening El Nino was a continually evolving concern and the chance of above average rainfall on the east coast of Australia was not looking good.

On average, Australian wheat production declined by 27 per cent in El Nino years.

"Obviously when we look around this region, profiles are relatively full, if not at 100 per cent and everything is looking very good so far," he said.

"If we get one more rain at the right time of year here (Darling Downs) we should get ourselves through – which is not necessarily the case for large parts of NSW or if we go further north-west of here."

Close to 130 people attended the event, which was hosted by Rabobank and Pacific Seeds at the Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport.

Attendees also heard from Wagners director Denis Wagner about the evolution of the company and construction of the Wellcamp Airport.