Australia, Victoria: A significant proportion of barley had deteriorated to feed quality, which fetched a lower price than the higher-quality malt barley, a spokesman for GrainCorp, Mario Falchoni said in a statement on December 26. GrainCorp is the leading grain handler and storer in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. Mario Falchoni, said damage to grain crops was less than feared. "We are well on the way to fulfilling our latest crop estimate of 9.5 million tonnes," he said according to Australian press.

GrainCorp's revised receival forecast of 9.5 million tonnes, made last week, was down 1 million tonnes from the November forecast. About 7 million tonnes of grain has so far been received into GrainCorp sites. The harvest of winter crops is complete in Queensland and northern NSW.

The resumption of harvesting has shown that damage to the winter grain crop from heavy rains has not been as bad as had been feared. The president of the Victorian Farmers Federation grains group, Ian Hastings, said the effects of the rain had been patchy, and some areas had not yet delivered any grain. "In many parts of the Mallee, there was no real serious damage to the crop," he said. "At Ultima (near Swan Hill), however, they had a lot of rain and almost all the grain has been downgraded. In Sea Lake and other places, they had even more rain."

Analyst Dennis Wise, of ProFarmer, said grain quality had dropped but not crashed. "Growers say canopies were thin enough to allow quicker drying than normal," he said. "AWB and GrainCorp both seem confident that grain quality south of Horsham will only see minimal damage."

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics estimated last month that the winter grain harvest would be 31 million tonnes, 21 per cent lower than last year's record crop of 39.4 million tonnes.