Australia's oil-seed industry on Tuesday cut its forecast for the domestic 2008/09 canola harvest by 6.9 percent after extreme weather damaged south-eastern crops. The Australian Oilseeds Federation cut its estimate for Australia's largest oilseed crop to 1.401 million tonnes, from the 1.505 million tonnes forecast a month ago, citing a mixture of high temperatures and insufficient rain in eastern states.

 

But the latest crop estimate would still be 31 percent higher than last season's harvest of 1.069 million tonnes. And the federation said canola crops in the top exporting state of Western Australia had benefited from above-average rainfall, though some frost damage had been reported. Western Australia was expected to produce 837,000 tonnes of canola, up 4 percent on October's forecast and 25 percent above last year's harvest of 607,000 tonnes.

 

Last week, grain handler and marketer GrainCorp Ltd said east-coast crushers might import canola after production shortfalls in the eastern states of New South Wales and Victoria. The federation said sowing of sunflower and soybean crops had begun in New South Wales and north-eastern Queensland state. It said the size of the soyabean crop would depend on prices, which had fluctuated widely, and the availability of irrigation water.

 

Still, the federation forecast a soyabean crop of 66,000 tonnes, almost double last season's 34,730 tonnes. The organisation expects the 2008/09 sunflower harvest to be 52,000 tonnes, down 29 percent from the previous season, though it said there was potential for a larger, late plant if better than average rain was received over all growing areas.