IT'S been a three-year roller coaster for Western Australian grain farmers, who have gone up and down and up again with bumper crops, a late break and varied rainfall providing plenty of dips and crests to ride through.
Added to that an annus horribilis for CBH and the whiplash of a huge tariff impost on barley traded into China - and 2020 left grain growers with plenty to contend with.
The year began with much of Australia in the grip of drought and bushfire, while in WA farmers' harvest fortunes were largely under pressure from low rainfall and a late break.
It meant that the State came off the back of a near record-breaking 2018/19 season - when 16.4 million tonnes was received - to face a challenging year and a hard finish to the 2019/20 harvest with a 11.29mt crop of varying quality.
This was down 37.5 per cent on 2018, according to the Grain Industry Association of WA's (GIWA) last crop report of the harvest released in February.
"What we have to remember is that 2018 was the second largest crop on record and considering the year in WA (in 2019) - no subsoil moisture, late break, very short growing season - it's actually not a bad result,'' said report author Michael Lamond.
"As you moved through the State, production was down a lot but prices haven't been too bad, so it hasn't been disastrous for everyone.''
Total tonnage for the Geraldton port zone was the hardest hit, down more than 50pc from 2018 to 1.3mt, Kwinana port zone was down 3.6mt, Esperance port zone was down 0.6mt and Albany port zone fared best, dropping by just 0.1mt
Wheat was the most affected crop in terms of tonnage, declining by 45.4pc overall from 2018 to 5.545mt, barley was down 25pc to 3.855mt, canola declined by 23pc, oats dropped 31.3pc, lupins by 38.8pc and pulses were down by 3pc.
Results differed greatly across the State and even within port zones, with some growers reporting their worst ever result while others on the south coast had their best ever season.
It was equally as tough on Australia's east coast, as the prolonged drought in Queensland and Victoria meant GrainCorp receivals at the end of the 2019/20 harvest were heavily skewed towards Victoria, with 3.27mt received by the end of January - about 80pc of that from the southern State.
Records were broken in a handful of Victorian receival sites with individual sites such as Nhill and Warracknabeal, in the northern Wimmera region, receiving more grain that all of Queensland combined.
In WA, CBH general manager operations Ben Macnamara said it had anticipated a harvest of widely variable crop quality and had "proactively planned a number of niche and offgrades to be made available if and when the need presented''.
The grim conditions meant parts of the South West, including the Esperance region, entered the year with declared water deficiencies.
And drought and bushfire-hit graziers in Queensland and NSW were reported to be buying hay at a frantic pace, igniting concerns of a national supply shortage by March.
Prices jumped by about $50 a tonne in the face of unprecedented demand, despite bumper yields in parts of Victoria, South Australia and the NSW Riverina.
Charity hay runs were quickly organised - including the Harvey Hay Run in January, which saw more than 2000 assorted bales, enough to fill 11 B-double trucks, sent from WA to burnt-out areas in NSW.
In a similarly epic effort, Farmers Across Borders organised a two-day run of 20 road trains from Esperance to Meekatharra to deliver almost 1200 tonnes of feed to that region's drought-affected farmers.
But by year's end, the 2020/21 harvest was on a different footing: in June, well-timed rain across Australia prompted Rabobank to forecast the nation's crop planting would be up 26pc on the past season to 22.5 million hectares - 12pc above the five-year average - including a 7pc rise in WA to 8.2m hectares.
GIWA's latest crop reports said with harvest winding up across WA, total grain production had outperformed the varied expectations this year and could reach 16.5mt - "a figure that most thought was unachievable following the very dry finishing conditions''.
GIWA said that while the current harvest had been a stop-start affair due to intermittent rain, cool weather and some early harvest bans, canola, barley and lupins were all yielding 10-20pc higher than expected and that wheat was heading the same way and achieving a higher proportion of premium grades than in recent years.
"For many growers, their crops water use efficiency is in uncharted territory, with greater than 20 kilograms of grain per millimetre of rains for cereals,'' GIWA's November report stated.
"The warm growing conditions that pushed crop growth along, cool temperatures during grain fill, few heat stress periods and minimal frost have all allowed crops to convert every drop of grain.''
GIWA's December estimates forecast the State's total grain crop this harvest would reach at least 15.963mt, up 14.1pc on last year, including 8.9mt of wheat (up 12.7pc), 4.2mt of barley (up 18pc), 1.625mt of canola (up 18.2pc) and 570,000t of lupins (up 14pc).
The good omens were backed by the latest CBH data to December 18 showing its receivals had reached 14.2mt, surpassing its five-year receivals average of 13.9mt, with five sites in its network breaking receival records in early December.
Australian Oilseeds Federation data released in November also tipped Australia would achieve its second highest canola crop since 2017-18, with 3.3mt predicted.
Much of the good outlook stemmed from the season getting off to a healthy start in early February and March, when good falls and some thunderstorms delivered rain to the Central Wheatbelt region and ex-tropical cyclones doused the Southern Cross area and the Kimberley - delivering more rain in a few days than many parts had received in 2019, filling dams and river systems and buoying hopes of a better season ahead.
GIWA's April Crop Report pointed to a positive outlook for 2020, with the good early rainfall taking the pressure off pre-emergent herbicides and strong grain prices offering growers options for crop rotations.
The wet meant some growers started planting canola, lupins and long-season wheat in March and April, plus scratching in unseasonably early oats to use as stock feed, after running light for the past couple of dry years.
"We didn't get any rain or subsoil moisture last year, but we did this year and it gives growers a lot more confidence that if they do sow on a light rainfall event, it will germinate and the crops will get up and away,'' Mr Lamond said.
Spirits were further helped in June, late July and August by further good, but often times patchy, falls which helped to consolidate yields.
But as the growing season unfolded, grain growers grappled with the varied rainfall which affected seeding times and planting rotations across parts of the State, while severe wind storms in May and again in June across much of the grainbelt damaged crops and property and caused farrow fill which delayed crop emergence or forced farmers to reseed.
Ultimately most of the year's crop was dry sown and when harvesting began in mid-October 15 it proved a stop-start affair which continues into the new year.
And while farmers inevitably focused on rainfall and sub-soil moisture levels at home, the grains industry headlines were largely dominated by two issues - devastating governance and leadership turmoil at CBH and the devolving Australian trade war with China.
CBH started 2020 with the 19/20 report touting some impressive handling records from the 18/19 harvest.
Twenty three of the 139 sites that opened for the 2018/19 harvest set new one-day receival tonnage records and 25 sites broke seasonal receival records.
The 2019/20 annual report also showed CBH Fertiliser achieved its biggest year, with sales growing to 103,000 tonnes, up from 55,000t in its first year, five year's ago.
CBH also made an early announcement that six of its receival sites would be improved in 2020 to expand total storage by 563,000t -although in May three projects were postponed until 2021 due to COVD-19 uncertainties.
In August a new site at Narngulu was added to the system, providing 180,000t of permanent grain storage, in October CBH announced a further 286,000t of permanent new storage at upgraded facilities at Moora, Konongorring and Watheroo and last month is slated the start of delayed upgrades at Brookton for the new year.
But on the flip side, CBH chairman Wally Newman entered the year under pressure and in damage control after the co-operative posted its worst ever trading loss to September 30, 2019, acknowledging the disappointing financial results from its marketing and trading division, which he blamed mostly on difficult "external'' grain marketing factors beyond its control.
"We paid growers more for their grain than could subsequently be achieved at sale and as a result marketing and trading reported a loss of $119.3 million for the year, with growers the beneficiaries,'' Mr Newman said.
"While we are disappointed the co-operative has reported a group deficit before rebates of $13.3m, we remain in a strong financial position with a robust balance sheet consisting of $1.8 billion in net assets, solid performance from operations and little long-term debt.''
The issue resonated as CBH Group members in districts one, two and four voted for new member directors, with candidates calling for a new approach in the wake of the co-op's poor financial performance.
Unusually large interest was shown in the vote for the three positions - for which there were seven candidates - with suggestions of a higher voter turn-out than was traditionally recorded amid consistent calls from the candidates for change - starting with the board.
Having been re-elected unopposed three year's earlier, Mr Newman, a Newdegate cropping and sheep farmer who had been chairman since 2014 and was the board's longest serving member of 19 years, was challenged in district 4 by former CBH Lake Grace area manager Shane Curruthers.
Mr Newman was re-elected with 65.12pc of the votes, but another long-serving director Vern Dempster, who had been on the board since 2008, lost his seat to newcomer John O'Neil, Wialki, who secured 63.38pc of the votes.
Mr O'Neill said he believed his win showed that growers wanted a fresh set of eyes looking over investments made outside of CBH's core business.
"I plan to really look into reanalysing the investments outside of that pipeline (that benefit growers), seeing what the value is and a bit of a cost benefit analysis,'' Mr O'Neil said.
The district 1 seat was won by Ken Seymour, Miling, after being left vacant by the controversial retirement, three days before his term expired at CBH's annual general meeting, of Rod Madden, from Morowa, after more than 11 years on the board.
The next day, CBH, the board and Mr Newman came under intense pressure when Mr Madden told ABC Country Hour that Mr Newman was "a dead man walking'' and said he could not stand by the chairman's comments about the InterFlour Group's profits, internal banking system and net asset position.
"The protocol was made that no statement would be made to growers until the CFO, the audit committee, the investment committee and the board had signed off on it,'' Mr Madden said in February.
"I had the choice of staying on the board which would symbolically indicate that I agreed with his statement, the other option was to exit the board and I've got a conscience that I need to live with.''
CBH promptly began legal proceedings against Mr Madden for confidentiality breaches, which reached a mediated settlement at the end of April.
The drama was telling at CBH's fiery AGM in late February, where Mr Newman announced that his latest three-year term as a director would be his last, while he also had to address complaints that were made about his use of inappropriate language towards a woman at an industry function in the Eastern States in 2017.
Also at the AGM, former chairman Robert Sewell called for a major shake-up of the board by reducing the number of grower-elected directors from nine to five - which sparked a months-long debate about the board size - and the meeting also denied as "insulting" a request for a pay rise for directors - a first in CBH history.
The tumult continued through March, with CHB chief executive Jimmy Wilson defending his relationship with Mr Newman as "very good and robust'' and saying CBH had learnt the lessons of a costly year.
But by April 1, Mr Newman had resigned from his role as chairman and a director, effective immediately and Simon Stead was appointed as the new chairman of the CBH board and Kondinin farmer Natalie Browning as deputy chairwoman.
In the same month, a special general meeting was called for May 15 to remove district 4 member director Trevor Badger after it was alleged he had breached board confidentiality by disclosing the identity of the woman about whom Mr Newman had directed inappropriate language.
Mr Badger had vigorously defended his position over the month and the process caused even more disquiet among some CBH member ranks.
He was ultimately cast out with a resolution to remove him from the board passing by 33 votes - or 51.09pc for the resolution.
"A 51pc is not a glowing endorsement of the governance CBH conducts at the moment,'' Mr Badger said, while accepting the outcome.
By June, the new leadership had initiated a governance review - with scope to consider a range of factors including CBH governance systems and board terms, tenure, diversity, board mix in terms of independent and grower-elected directors and board size.
Seven proposed reforms unveiled in October, including changes to the board size and composition and limits on director tenures, will be put to the membership at the 2021 AGM.
"Growers have given us clear feedback that there is support for change to our governance,'' Mr Stead said.
And if that few months of drama was not enough, COVID-19 forced CBH to call off its very popular annual grower study tour, in which it had planned to take 40 grain growers to China and the Philippines mid-year.
At least CBH finished 2020 on a much improved footing - with the leadership tensions put to bed and its latest financial results, released this month, showing a remarkable $40.7m turnaround in its finances, despite the tough trading year.
Australia's biggest grain exporter reported a net profit to September 30 of just under $11m from group revenues, down 23pc on the previous year due to poor seasonal conditions, having paid down debt to $6.7m, without returning rebates to growers and with storage and handling fees held flat.
Trade concerns were raised in January about the fairness and transparency of access to Australia's grain export supply chains, including ports, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) warning that CBH facilities in WA and Viterra in South Australia were flash points and that exporters and grower groups were uneasy about the potential for distortion in port access.
"The level of competition between port terminals varies significantly among different regions,'' said ACCC commissioner Cristina Cifuentes, at the release of its review of the 2018-19 shipping season.
"The entry of new service providers has provided competition in come regions, but WA and SA remain services by vertically integrated near-monopolies.''
But CBH defended its position.
"To keep WA grain growers competitive in those export markets, CBH will continue to provide fair and transparent access to our network to allow growers to export their grain to market in the most effective way possible, regardless of who is selling grain,'' Mr Newman said.
But the main dark cloud on the grain industry horizon came when the Chinese government imposed whopping tariffs of up to 80pc on imports of Australian barley as a result of its investigation into dumping of the commodity into China at below Australian prices.
Industry groups reacted swiftly saying it would be impossible for Australia to compete into the lucrative Chinese market against other barley and coarse grain producers.
"Over half of our crop in WA goes into China, it's almost a billion dollar industry,'' WAFarmers new grain section president Mic Fels said.
"If this is all part of a bigger diplomatic stoush between Australia and China, then it's a really poorly targeted one as the only losers are beer drinkers and lotfeeders in China who love Australian barley and the barley growers of WA.''
In a portent of things to come, Rabobank agricultural analyst Wes Lefroy told a Liebe Group Crop Updates in Dalwallinu in mid-March that global factors would have more of an impact on grain prices in WA than they had over the past few years.
While local dynamics had supported higher grain prices in WA as large quantities of grain moved to the Eastern States in recent years, Mr Lefroy warned global seas would be a lot rougher for the State this time around, particularly due to trade ructions between China and the United States (and, as it turned out, Australia) as well as the evolving COVID-19 pandemic.
Deteriorating relations between Australia and China throughout 2020 saw China announce further scrutiny of Australian wheat and barley imports - with CBH confirming it was suspended from exporting barley to China for alleged repeated contamination with quarantine restricted pests in CBH shipments and, in November, Emerald Grain was hit with a similar suspension due to an purported excessive weed seed burden.
But in better export news, in February Australian became the only country with a permit to export feed grain to Indonesia after the ratification of a preferred trade agreement between the two countries.
The new quota allowance included 500,000t of feed grain, which can be a mix of wheat, barley or sorghum, growing at 5pc year-on-year.
And the Indian government opened the door to exports of Australian malt barley after removing a critical phytosanitary requirement that acted as a roadblock to sales.
In October, the Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre released its Barley 2030 report calling for the barley industry to look at alternative markets to China, while continuing to talk to China's brewers and malsters.
It said there were plenty of potential homes for malt and feed lines and highlighted increasingly affluent regions and countries with growing demand and a matched freight advantage which could be targeted - including Japan and South Korea, South East Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and India.
The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed during the year what many in Australia's agricultural regions must have suspected - that 2019 was the hottest and driest year over Australia since records began in 1910.
Around the same time, ABARES offered its grim warning that changes in rainfall and temperature since the 1950s had reduced farm profits by about 22pc and causes a loss in production of about $1.1b a year.
The Insights study examined both short-term climate risks such as drought and longer-term shifts in climate conditions and provided an analysis of the effects of climate variability on Australian cropping and livestock farms.
"These effects have been more pronounced in the cropping sector, reducing profits by 35pc or about $70,900 per year for a typical cropping farm,'' said ABARES senior economist Neal Hughes.
Significantly, the report highlighted implications for how farmers and government responded and adapted to climate changes and particularly to drought risk.
"Adjustment, change and innovation are fundamental to improving agricultural productivity, maintaining Australia's competitiveness in world markets and providing attractive and financially sustainable opportunities for farm households,'' said ABARES executive director Steve Hatfield-Dodds.
"Supporting farm households experiencing hardship is important, but for the long-term health of the sector this needs to be done in ways that promote resilience and productivity and allow for adjustment and change.
"Key options in this regard include research and development to improve long-term farm drought resilience, including further development of weather insurance markets.''
The race to take a new industry online continued during 2020 amongst a raft of companies pursuing Sulphate of Potash production prospects - with new technologies and management structures put in place and encouraging announcements of further progress.
There was even the prospect of companies nearing commercial production by year's end, at prices that would be closer to the more widely used Muriate of Potash, offering a new option to farmers losing productivity through rising salinity.
And new grain cultivars hit the market in 2020 promising benefits to growers.
Plant breeder InterGrain released Buff in January, an acid tolerant barley which will be a big plus for farmers in the eastern Wheatbelt and particularly useful on lighter ground.
And amid much fanfare and after nine years' development, InterGrain released Maximus CL barley as an alternative to its leading Spartacus CL variety.
Maximus CL was described as an exceptionally high yielding, early to mid-flowering, potential Malt, imidazolinone tolerant barley with improvements in disease resistance, yield, receival standard quality and malting quality.
"The most notable thing that was wrong with Spartacus was spot form net blotch and we've really made a significant improvement to resistance to that,'' said InterGrain barley breeder David Moody, who dressed in a gladiator's costume to reflect the quirky marketing InterGrain has adopted to help farmers recognise its grain varieties.
A couple of Bruce Rock growers led the way to seed a new dual-purpose winter wheat variety Illabo, from Australian Grain Technologies (AGT), in the middle of March.
And in September, AGT announced a new, very unique "slow, very slow'' spring maturing wheat variety, Denison, with an APW classification in WA, South Australian and Victoria.
New herbicides - pre-emergent Callisto and Luximax and a post-emergent Frequency - were released just ahead of the growing season, giving growers more weed-fighting options.
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPRID), with co-investment from the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), released its 2020 and then last month its 2021 crop sowing guides - offering growers a compilation of the former annual crop variety guides for wheat, barley, oats and canola and including a section on pulses such as lupins, lentils, fieldpeas, chickpea, faba beans and vetch.
A team of researchers from The University of WA's Centre for Plant Genetics and Breeding celebrated a seven-year undertaking to develop its accelerated Single Seed Descent Platform that which will cut the breeding time for new pulse lines by two to three years.
The Australian Exports Grains Innovation Centre was given a two-year extension after $6m in funding was secured through its members, the DPIRD and GRDC.
There was a changing of the guard in some of grain industry leadership echelons: among them, the GRDC pulled off a coup by attracting home-grown research leader Peter Carberry back to Australia as its general manager of applied research and development and after an exhaustive recruitment process Tony Williams was announced as the new GRDC managing director in June.
Mr Fels replaced the long-term president of the WAFarmers Grain Council, Duncan Young, Beverley.
Alana Alexander, a farmer and university student from Walebing, and Murray McCartney, a grain grower and sales manager from Geraldton, were among 10 young Australians chosen for the 2020 Australian Grain Leaders program, GrainsGrower's flagship leadership program.
"The program is all about improving leadership skills and helping us understand a bit more about our own leadership style, all while helping the industry further develop,'' Mr McCartney said.
GrainCorp's malt division reclaimed its former name, United Malt, when it was demerged from the company in early April, with shareholders receiving one United Malt share for owned when the new company was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, GrainCorp reported another pleasing financial result in November and this month it appointed former Fonterra chief operating officer Robert Spurway to its top job.
Grains Australia Ltd was formed in April to consolidate and deliver industry good services and functions on behalf of the entire grains supply chain, appointing as its inaugural chairman, industry veteran Terry Enright and experienced grains industry professional Jonathan Wilson as chief executive officer.
The year ended with hopes grain transport in WA could be made easier with a renewed push to re-establish Tier 3 rail lines and the State Government drafting regulatory changes to the railways access code to make access to the rain network "easier and quicker.''
And among myriad new technologies on offer this year, a low-cost rapid barley variety technology, called ZoomBarley, which uses artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, was being offered to farmers for free this harvest to help identify malt barley varieties in under three minutes after InterGrain said in October it would deploy the machines into Australian grain accumulators, traders and maltsters.
