Monday 7 August to Sunday 3 September 2023 report

Growers delivered over 20,000 tonnes to the Viterra network during August, with lentils making up the majority.

We have seen an increase in deliveries over the previous two months, with receivals totalling over 50,000 tonnes as growers take the opportunity to deliver their grain stored on farm postharvest through our postharvest delivery procedure.

This includes growers and buyers utilising our port direct service, with buyers purchasing growers’ on farm grain for delivery direct to port postharvest ahead of when their vessel is loading.

During the month we shipped the seven millionth tonne from our port terminals as we continue to move growers’ 2022/23 season grain to international markets.

Viterra General Manager Supply Chain, Derek Robjohns congratulates employees for their ongoing hard work in safely and efficiently moving this season’s crop to end use markets, which has led to breaking more shipping records.

“We are still adding to the long list of record-breaking achievements for the 2022/23 season thanks to the efforts of our employees and logistics providers in helping us meet the demand for grain from our network,” Derek says.

“Employees have loaded more than three million tonnes at our Inner Harbour and Outer Harbor port terminals, breaking the previous shipping record set in the 2011/12 season for the Adelaide ports combined. This is also the first time ever Viterra has shipped more than three million tonnes from the two ports.

“We have broken our seasonal shipping record at Outer Harbor set during the 2021/22 season, after loading more than two million tonnes at the terminal this harvest. Outer Harbor joins our Thevenard port terminal which broke its seasonal shipping record in July.

“Employees also loaded the two millionth tonne of grain onto vessels at Port Lincoln earlier in the month, celebrating another shipping milestone in our network.”

Derek says we are also working hard to supply domestic demand from our network and have outturned nearly one million tonnes of growers’ grain to Australian markets.

“With our international and domestic outturns totalling 8 million tonnes, we are in a fantastic position for the upcoming 2023/24 season with low carryover.

“The leftover crop will help us meet the strong demand for shipments for the 2023/24 season, for which we have over 6.2 million tonnes of forward shipping booked from our six port terminals.”

Viterra is also continuing preparations for the fast-approaching harvest. During August, we published our 2023/24 planting survey results, which helps us understand what growers have planted and guides our segregations at sites. We also hosted silo committee members and grower representatives at our preharvest meeting in Adelaide to discuss our focus areas for the upcoming harvest and beyond.

Viterra publishes 2023/24 planting survey results

We have published the results from our 2023/24 planting survey, which includes feedback from almost 1000 of our grower customers about the commodities, varieties and hectares they have planted for the season.

We release a planting survey each year to understand what is being grown. The feedback growers provide through the survey helps to guide our segregations at sites for the coming harvest.

The results of our 2023/24 planting survey show:

• Overall plantings of wheat, barley and canola remain largely unchanged
• Overall plantings of lentils have increased slightly, with a small decrease in other pulses
• Malt barley varieties are continuing to change. Maximus and Commodus are now the most planted malt varieties, accounting for a combined 57% of plantings
• GM canola plantings have increased across all regions from 31% in 2022/23 to 39% in 2023/24
• Lentil plantings have increased for Nipper type lentils, and reduced for Hallmark variety

Read a summary of Viterra’s planting survey results.

Viterra hosts annual grower preharvest meeting

Viterra hosted silo committee members and grower representatives from across southern Australia for our annual preharvest meeting in Adelaide on 24 and 25 August.

Attendees at the meeting heard about Viterra’s focus areas for the upcoming harvest and beyond, as we continue to improve our supply chain to meet our grower and buyer customers’ needs, and about topical industry subjects including markets and sustainability.

Viterra Chief Operations Officer, James Murray says the preharvest meeting was a valuable opportunity for Viterra employees to connect with grower customers ahead of the harvest.

“We were pleased to share updates on areas such as operations and services, investments, major projects and the performance of the Australian and global Viterra business,” James says.

“The meeting focused on what we are doing to continue to improve our supply chain with significant large projects and investments in elevation capacity and digital innovation across the Viterra network.

“The two days were incredibly valuable for the Viterra team as we received feedback and ideas from growers and were able to answer any questions they had.”

James says Viterra also provided attendees with the opportunity to hear from several guest speakers who shared fantastic insights into important topics for the agriculture sector.

“We were pleased to have guest speakers representing both Australian and international businesses at the event, including RaboBank, Grain Producers SA (GPSA), ANZ Bank, Nutrien Ag Solutions, Wilmar International, Allied Pinnacle, Viterra Singapore, and The Department of Primary Industries and Regions SA (PIRSA),” James says.

Read more about our 2023/24 preharvest grower meeting.

Disclaimer
* This data is subject to variation due to individual site operations and the timing of reports.
** The total 2022/23 data includes grain received into Viterra’s storage and handling network since 10 October 2022.