Crops on Track

By Georgia Campbell
29^th July 2025

Rainfall across most of Australia’s winter cropping regions, has been a welcome change for growers. Growers had been looking for a top up of moisture, after a run of frosty days had significantly dried out the topsoil, even in the wetter parts of the northern New South Wales. The cold winter has really slowed the crop progress down this year, particularly with many crops germinating late, or being planted late, with the timing of rainfall events. While grower sentiment across the east coast felt low due prior to the recent rainfall event, due to the slow crop progress, if we continue to see these regular falls throughout August and September crops will continue to improve into the back end of the season. Crops across the west coast are also on the improve, with timely rain events moving through, setting up for what growers are hoping will be a reasonable finish to the season.

Markets have been steadily falling away over the last few weeks for old crop cereals, as buyers wrap up their positions for the 24/25 season. Both growers and buyers are watching the norther hemisphere harvest closely. Grower sentiment has been mixed about the market direction and what to do with grain both in storage facilities and stored on farm. Growers who are comfortable with the season are cognisant that they will be able to refill on farm storages from the upcoming harvest, while others are not as comfortable with the crop conditions. The expectation remains that there will be significant carry over of old crop, centred around the northern half of New South Wales, as growers are faced with another good season. The alignment of consumer bids and grower offers have continued to widen as the weeks progress. Growers in the south of New South Wales and Victoria have been able to take advantage of farmer to farmer selling for feed grains, which has traded at a small premium, but these bids have not been there for any significant volume.

Canola continues to be a volatile commodity, reacting daily to changes in market sentiment over northern hemisphere crop conditions, tariff talks and trade deals. Reports out this week of improving relations with the United States and the rest of the world, with tariff talks getting closer to being finalised at 15%, well below what the market had initially thought. Australian markets are closely watching trade tensions between China and Canada. Particularly with the announcement in mid July that China would trial taking Australia Canola again, with agreement to take 5 cargos of Australian Canola. If Canadian-China trade talks continue to break down, Canadian canola seed could be priced out of the Chinese market, potentially opening the door to Australia to become a reliable source of canola in the future. 

Wrapping up this week, everyone continues to watch the crop grow, as we inch closer to harvest time. Timely rainfall has aided this progress in the last week, but most growers will have more on order for August and September to see the crop home. Old crop markets are largely flat or falling away, as most buyers turn their attention to new crop, with most export opportunities wrapped up and feed homes mostly covered into harvest.