Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Yeah.

The federal government's ag research division, ABARES, uh, their latest crop report is forecasting wheat crops in Queensland to average 1.8 tons to the hectare.

Uh, they're forecasting barley to average 2.2 tons and chickpeas 1.5 tons to the hectare.

Uh, how does that compare to your region, and do you think that's achievable?

A fine example of this, Cowan, is this last week, the various reports on Australia's, all of Australia's, latest agricultural production figures that I hope will be of interest to all farmers everywhere.

Now, on the first day of spring, 1st of September, ABARES, and that's the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Science...

ABEZ put out a release called Agriculture Production to Ease Slightly, which says that ABEZ is forecasting the value of agricultural production to fall by 5% to $99.4 billion, in 2026-27 or 105.6 billion when fisheries and forestry included.

And this is a reflection of lower crop and livestock production and a decline in livestock prices.

The Federal Agriculture Minister, Julie Collins, and the Assistant Agriculture Minister, Anthony Chisholm, they put out a statement, and their statement was, new figures show farm production value forecast to remain strong.

And so that was their take.

Now, the ministerial release, it highlights that ABARES forecast result, it's still the second highest on record, following ag production exceeding $100 billion in 2025. which is four years ahead of a target that the industry set back in 2018, where they wanted Australian agricultural production value to exceed or to reach $100 billion.

So it's ahead of that 2030 target.

And the new crop forecast predicted Australian farmers will grow a record lentil crop this season, with Victoria tipped to produce almost a million tonnes of the crop.

The ABARES forecast national lentil production is also set to hit a record 2.3 million tonnes this harvest, with a 7,000 tonne jump in Victoria on last year.

Pulse trader Tim Teague from Teague, Australia, says lentil yield is likely to be higher, actually, than the ABEZ forecast because of excellent soil moisture and in new regions like Western Australia and the Air Peninsula are also starting to grow the pulse.

I think most people feel that the hectares is accurate.

Last year was probably the largest crop that we had.

It was about a million tonnes last year.

This year, I think ABARES just put their forecast out at about 850 tonnes.

So it's certainly back this coming year, and that's mainly back lower because of the small area in New South Wales and Queensland.

But all that sort of warm weather and all that rain has been very good for the crops.

So much so, in fact, that the latest figures from ABARES are predicting Victoria may well be heading towards a record winter crop this year.

This also after we planted our biggest winter crop ever.

And in some parts of the state, things are looking very positive.

You're listening to the ABC Country Hour.

Well, the government's new national spring crop forecast is out today, and it's good news for the southern states and less promising the further north you go, while Western Australia is waiting for a final rain.

According to the ABARES National Winter Crop Production, volume is expected to reach 61 million tonnes.

And it's great news in Victoria, which planted its largest ever winter crop with production up last year and our neighbours in South Australia looking for a big turnaround after several years of drought conditions.

Those are the kinds of statistical pieces of information we need to make good decisions similarly with um urban development and urbanization uh the afi has worked with csro to again look at modeling on this that's one piece of the puzzle and there is a movement out of agricultural production into urban development but it's not massive that doesn't mean though that it's not important to consider because it might not be at a massive scale but if that's happening at pinch points where there is key production for example vegetable production in the lochia valley in queensland if those sorts of areas where they are really important maybe small scale but very crucial elements of our agricultural productive system we need to be making good informed choices about what we want to see that land used for.

So we would like to see the AFI, we're working on a program now to understand those governance problems in more depth, help to build that land use evidence base with the ABARES and CSIROs of the world who've got that scientific capacity and help to manage our land use transition to ensure a productive future for agriculture and for everyone in Australia.

It's Katie McRobert, the Executive Director of the Australian Farm Institute, speaking there with Fiona Broome.

Let's stay on those land use challenges.