IN an effort to house more high-yielding grain this harvest CBH has built an additional 1.1 million tonnes of emergency storage, with the majority of it in the Kwinana zone.
This is a new record for the co-operative, with its previous benchmark being about 800,000 tonnes of emergency storage in 2016.
CBH operations general manager David Capper said the extra storage would help out in a challenging harvest that had a late start after a wet winter and a hot September.
“Our estimate has been a bit of a roller coaster all year, but it has turned around for most areas of the State, with exceptions of the Gairdner River and Mount Madden lakes areas,” Mr Capper said.
“Growers are having quite a reasonable year and yields are particularly high in the Kwinana zone.
“Yields have been higher than expected and even though it’s already the start of December, it’s still early days for harvest, particularly for Albany and Esperance zones.”
Mr Capper said the Kwinana zone might break its record but it was a long way off yet.
“But in preparation for that is our emergency storage,” he said.
“We have nearly built 1.1m tonnes of emergency storage and still going.
“In some areas of the network, the yields have well and truly exceeded what we estimated.”
As well as the storage, the operations team has also included additional throughput, including another 19 drive-over grids and more than 20 enhancement projects on current grids to receive grain faster.
“We have improved site access and tested more efficient operating models for receival sites,” Mr Capper said.
He said there was a big focus on transport and freight to keep a lid on costs.
Mr Capper said at the port CBH had a responsibility to exporters to load customer vessels efficiently, manage customers’ grain quality requirements, provide low-risk export options and maximise grain value for growers.
“Effectively we are an open warehouse supply chain provider,” Mr Capper said.
“We have up to 22 customers buying grain off our growers and the way the supply chain works is they can buy grain off any grower at any site and they are entitled to get it.
“We operate this network which growers have built up over many years and the shape has changed as the crop has changed and delivery patterns have changed,” Mr Capper said.
“We have a focus on our fees being globally competitive and as low as they possibly can be.
“Effectively our objective is to cover our costs, provide enough capital to continue to sustain the network and give things back to our growers.”
CBH is Australia’s lowest cost supply chain currently at $25/t, dropping $4/t compared to last year.
Other handling companies such as Glencore, South Australia, are at $50/t and GrainCorp New South Wales/Victoria at $42/t.
“Our aim is sustain that flat rate for the next five years,” Mr Capper said.
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“The fees are set each year based on average harvest size and capital requirements and with an above-average harvest resulting in a surplus being generated.”
New to CBH’s harvest preparations this year has been the Notifier app, Paddock Planner and the CDF app.
The Notifier app has replaced the traditional SMS text messages growers used to receive updates from CBH.
This platform has allowed growers to customise notifications at a zone, area or site level and it also notifies growers of site services, site operating hours and site closures.
The CDF app provides real-time data for both carters and growers.
Growers have had the opportunity this harvest to track deliveries and receive load results on farm.
With this year being the final year before all paper trails are removed from the CBH in-loading system, only 63 per cent of growers have downloaded and utilised the app.
