Week ending Sunday 12 October 2019 report

This year’s harvest has kicked off, with around 1,800 tonnes delivered into our network. Barley made up the majority of receivals in the first week.

Five sites welcomed their first deliveries last week, with Port Pirie and Gladstone in the Central region receiving nearly 1,600 tonnes and sites including Kimba, Thevenard and Tumby Bay in the Western region taking in around 200 tonnes of grain.

The network’s first receival was delivered on Tuesday 8 October at our Port Pirie site, five days ahead of last year. This year’s first delivery was made by Mambray Creek grower Ben Bussenschutt with a load of Spartacus barley.

Ben said the Bussenschutt family has been the first to deliver into Viterra at the start of harvest on more than one occasion now – the last time was in 2017/18.

“Spartacus grows quite quickly and we normally seed at Mambray Creek from mid-April to get some early rain before starting to seed at our Paskeville property,” Ben said.

Our Port Pirie site hit another milestone last week with the network’s first grower benefiting from the introduction of barley dynamic binning. Telowie grower Ian Mudge received an upgrade from BAR2 (previously F2) to BAR1 (previously F1).

Ian said the service is fair and well worth it as over the season you might have a few upgrades.

“It’s a little win in your pocket outside of what your classification should have been and gives you some extra dollars,” Ian said.

“It all adds up in a season like this.”

Viterra Operations Manager Michael Hill said barley dynamic binning was added this harvest following feedback from growers and the success of wheat dynamic binning last year which delivered approximately $6 million in value to growers.

“Dynamic binning provides growers with the potential to access a higher grade for loads that are just outside of receival standards,” Michael said.

“The service is available for barley grade BAR1 (F1) and Malt1 grades for Planet, Scope, Spartacus and Compass, and wheat grades ASW1, APW1, H2 and H1 grades.”

Did you know?

• Viterra invests around $40 million each year into our infrastructure targeting projects that provide the greatest value to growers.
• Seven of our silos have been transformed with artwork, the latest of which was our Cowell silo completed in September.
• Each year, our workforce triples from October through to January, as we employ around 1,500 harvest workers.

Disclaimer
* This data is subject to variation due to individual site operations and the timing of reports.
** The total 2019/20 data includes grain received into Viterra’s storage and handling network since 8 October 2019.
*** Eastern region data includes Inner Harbour and Victorian sites.