Tag / grain

by brandsa2018

Farmers’ unique investment grows SA grain industry

Grain farmers are growing increasingly resilient in South Australia as they continue to plough their own funds into cutting edge research, says industry chief Caroline Rhodes.

Caroline, who took over the reins at Grain Producers SA earlier this year as the organisation’s first female CEO, says local farmers have led the way nationally in investing in their own futures.

Each grain farmer voluntarily pays 30 cents for every tonne of grain sold into the SA Grain Industry Trust (SAGIT) and, as they face a challenging season, the 25 years of corresponding research is paying dividends.

“Grain producers see research as being critical to increasing productivity, reducing risk and unlocking investment in agriculture, and, through SAGIT, they are prioritising their own research needs,” says Caroline, who previously was a trustee of the fund.

“No other state has a research fund supported by growers for state-based, grains industry research. SA is the envy of other states.”

In the past year, $1.8 million in trust funding has supported 25 different grains industry research projects to benefit SA farmers.

Caroline says this work has triggered vast improvements in farming techniques and was now helping farmers better manage seasonal rainfall conditions.

Photo: PIRSA.

“It’s a combination of plant breeding targeting varieties that have a higher drought tolerance, but the biggest change and help by far has been the widespread adoption of no-till farming,” she says.

No-till farming sees producers aim to create little disturbance to soil in growing or harvesting crops, with stubble from previous years creating valuable organic matter to enrich soil and improve moisture conservation.

There are currently about 4,500 grain farms in SA with Primary Industries and Regions SA statistics showing they contribute about $5.3 billion to gross food revenue in the state. Their average grain harvest is about seven million tonnes annually.

Despite this year’s lower rainfall seeing lower tonnage forecasts, Caroline believes farmers are increasingly better equipped to manage drought years through sustainable farming practices.

“While this season may be challenging, there still remains an underlying optimism about the future of the industry and its growth potential,” she says.

“If you look at the longer term, we have seen record shipments from SA as yields continued to improve. While there may be disruption to exports this year, our farmers are resilient.

“SA grain has a fantastic reputation for quality and it means our product is in high demand offshore to feed a growing world population.”

Photo: PIRSA.

About 85% of wheat, barley, canola, oats, lentils, peas, beans, lupins and chickpeas grown over about four million hectares, is exported.

Since taking over the role at Grain Producers SA, Caroline has overseen the organisation moving its headquarters from Mt Barker in the Adelaide Hills to Flinders Street in the city.

There also has been a rebrand to “better reflect a new direction for GPSA as being a modern, progressive and professional representation body”.

Caroline has overseen the creation of a five-point working plan to steer the industry organisation’s future as the voice of SA growers.

This focuses on improving infrastructure, trade and market access, research and development, creating a stronger workforce and balancing agriculture with competing land use needs.

Caroline believes her appointment as CEO, along with the organisation having two other high profile women on its board, was about “leading by example and reflecting how many women are working in the industry”.

Grain Producers SA CEO Caroline Rhodes joins PIRSA CEO Scott Ashby, left, Pork SA chairman Mark McLean, Primary Industries and Regional Development Minister Tim Whetstone, and Primary Producers SA executive chairman Rob Kerin at Brand South Australia’s recent agribusiness industry briefing.

Independent board director Professor Wendy Umberger is the University of Adelaide’s Professor of Agricultural Economics and Food Policy and executive director of its Centre for Global Food and Resources, focusing on economic issues affecting global food and agricultural value chains.

While more a recently appointed board member – grain, hay and sheep farmer Tanja Morgan – also works as a project manager for Mallee Sustainable Farming.

Caroline says the industry is well backed by global leaders in grains research at the Waite Institute and the new $3.7 million Clare Research Centre with its focus on legume crops.

It also offers enormous economic and work opportunities.

“The grains industry is an engine room for the local economy. At harvest time, the storage and handling workforce alone sees more than 1500 casual jobs being created statewide,” Caroline says.

“We have a broad range of jobs on offer and it’s a matter of encouraging people to consider agriculture as a career option because it’s a growth industry in SA.”

Header image: Grain Producers SA.

Industry in focus: Agribusiness

Throughout the month of October, the state’s agribusiness industry will be under the magnifying glass as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian farmers, producers, agricultural researchers and biosecurity workers are the lifeblood of our country communities and are big players in the state’s overall economic welfare. Read more stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Agribusiness the backbone of SA economy

They help put food on our tables, contribute enormously to the state’s economy and uphold the livelihood of our regions.

South Australian farmers are the lifeblood of our country communities and are big players in the state’s overall economic welfare, with agriculture contributing to 25% of our economy.

Our agricultural researchers and biosecurity workers are equally important to our state’s reputation for being clean, green, pest free and one of the most sustainable food and wine growing regions on the planet.

Throughout October, Brand SA News will bring you success stories and the latest innovations from the state’s agribusiness industry, as part of Brand South Australia’s successful I Choose SA campaign.

We’ll take you inside the dairy industry and why you should be hunting down local dairy labels on your weekly shop, how multi-generational farming businesses have diversified, and how women are leading the way.

Food producers at B.-d Farm Paris Creek in the Adelaide Hills, makers of dairy products including yoghurt, cheese, butter and milk. Photo: PIRSA.

First up, we will deliver an article on Thornby Premium Lamb, a longstanding family-owned farming business with a presence at Sanderston on the outskirts of the Murray Mallee, as well as on Kangaroo Island.

We’ll also hear from Grain Producers SA’s first female boss, Caroline Rhodes, who will talk to the state’s grain industry, one that last year produced an 11 million tonne harvest worth a total farm gate value of $2.2 billion*.

Wheat is our primary grain, with 4500 farms across the state contributing to the grain industry, helping keep us and our livestock fed, and assisting in the manufacturing of a range of everyday products.

We’ll also bring you something a little weird – the world of potato waste.

Potatoes SA plans to tackle food waste by using discarded potato peel and pulp to make premium vodka (which we’re happy to taste test).

Brand South Australia’s I Choose SA for agribusiness ambassadors will also be revealed, and their experiences and industry predications shared.

Our coverage of agribusiness will take you inside some of our regions – our food bowls free from fruit fly and the vine-destroying phylloxera pest.

SA is the only Australian mainland state free from fruit fly and we spend about $5 million a year trying to keep it that way through prevention, detection and eradication measures.

Aside from knowing where our food grows, we’ll also find out where it goes, with China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand among others being some of our largest export markets.

And the wine, let’s not forget the wine. SA’s 3400 grape growers produce yearly crops valued at $658 million.

 

Eighty per cent of Australia’s premium wine comes from SA, proving we definitely know how to make a good drop.

To help kickstart the month of agribusiness exploration, Brand South Australia will host an Industry Briefing on October 9, where guests will learn about key innovations and the range of careers and available pathways.

Guests will hear from Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Tim Whetstone, Pork SA chairman Mark McLean and Grain Producers SA CEO Caroline Rhodes.

What: Brand South Australia I Choose SA for Agribusiness Industry Briefing
When: October 9, 4.30–6.30pm.
Where: Adelaide Showground, The Old Ram Shed.
Tickets: From $25–$49

Register for the event here.

*Statistics and industry figures sourced from PIRSA.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Kangaroo Island showcases pure grain to the world

Kangaroo Island Pure Grain (KIPG) is helping to further strengthen the island’s clean and green reputation to drive export markets and support local farmers.

For more than a decade KIPG has endeavoured to provide premium returns for local growers of non-genetically modified grains, oilseeds and pulses that are fully traceable back to individual farms.

While the domestic market is an important part of KIPG’s operations, its export market makes up the majority of its sales.

Recently the company hosted a delegation of Japanese buyers who visited the island for a first-hand insight into the local grain industry and the pristine environment.

“We have high interest from Japan in our non-GM canola, so we’ve been doing business with them for nearly 11 years,” says KIPG CEO Shane Mills.

“Our canola goes to Japan as pure non-GM canola oil and they’ve really embraced the clean, green and pristine environment it comes from.

“That’s the real success story to date for KIPG.”

Delegates on their visit to KIPG in 2017. A group also visited the island this September.

Recently KIPG has branched out to help local farmers find new niche markets, particularly with well known brands in the food and beverage industries.

KIPG collaborates with iconic South Australian brewer Coopers to supply Westminster barley used for making beer.

The barley is malted at Coopers’ $65 million new malting plant in Adelaide and is also supplied to boutique breweries.

The collaboration has eventually led to the making of the island’s very first whiskey, produced by Kangaroo Island Spirits (KIS).

KIS is preparing to distil the single malt whiskey also with the help of the island’s Drunken Drone Brewery and port barrels sourced from Bay of Shoals Wines.

KIPG CEO Shane Mills says relationships with well known companies such as Coopers and other leading businesses on the island “gives another arm to help the growers’ profitability”.

He says KIPG also supplies biscuit wheat to Adelaide’s Allied Mills which makes Arnott’s Tim Tams.

Drunken Drone Brewkery’s Greg Simons, left, Member for Mawson Leon Bignell, Kangaroo Island Pure Grain manager Dennis Jamieson and Kangaroo Island Spirits’ Jon Lark each enjoy a Lark Whiskey. They’ll have to wait two years before the island’s first whiskey is matured.

Kangaroo Island’s grain growers provide up to 20,000 tonnes a year to KIPG, with commodities including wheat, canola, broad beans and malted barley.

“Our broad beans that we grow on the island go right through South East Asia and they go into snack foods – similar to how we eat peanuts,” Shane says.

“We’re marketing that right through Indonesia and through Taiwan and we’re just breaking into the Middle East now.

“That’s another success story that’s provided our growers with another profitable crop.

“If you look at dollar terms our percentage of export is somewhere around 70% and tonnage wise it’s about 50%.

“We’re pushing to grow the export business a bit and maximise the value of our crops.”

KIPG was established in 2009 by a group of local grain growers who were looking for a more viable alternative than the local silo system to market their grain.

Shane says costs for transporting freight off the island to the mainland was a “real catalyst” for establishing KIPG.

“Our job is to market the grain at a profit that negates the freight factor, so we’re very much into niche marketing because we don’t accumulate hundreds of thousands of tonnes,” he says.

KIPG’s site near Kingscote on Kangaroo Island.

KIPG receives, classifies, stores, processes and markets the majority of the island’s premium grains, oilseeds, and pulses.

At harvest time – usually in early December – grain is sent to the KIPG receiving and storage facility just outside of the island’s main business hub of Kingscote.

KIPG partners with local trucking company Ugly Dog Transport to send the grain on the SeaLink ferry to domestic buyers.

It also has a processing facility at Osborne in Adelaide where the product is graded and packaged ready for export.

Kangaroo Island local Ben Pontifex is a fifth generation farmer, growing canola, broad beans and malted barley.

He says having a collaborative approach to grain growing on the island is “beyond integral” to the local industry’s livelihood.

“It gives us a fighting chance with the freight rate, and logistically too, all the way through from harvest to the end markets.”

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by brandsa2018

Grain handler Viterra recruiting for 1500 jobs across SA

Grain handler Viterra is on the hunt for 1500 seasonal workers to fill roles at about 80 different locations across South Australia.

Applications are now open for harvest workers to take on a range of roles from October to January at a number of Viterra’s storage and handling sites including along the far West Coast of SA, through the Yorke Peninsula, up to the Mid North, on the outskirts of Adelaide and down through the South East.

Depending on how the harvest season finishes, casual work will be available for several months from October to handle deliveries of the main commodities grown in SA – wheat, barley, canola, and pulses.

Viterra’s human resources director Ben Norman says Viterra is a major employer in regional areas with a workforce of 800 permanent staff, which is significantly boosted during harvest.

“We are a proud supporter of regional SA and are pleased to provide employment opportunities each year through our harvest recruitment,” he says.

“A range of positions are available for people seeking short-term work between October and January which is grain growers’ busiest time of the year.”

Viterra undertakes an annual harvest recruitment drive and this year was the only SA company nominated for Best Recruitment Campaign at the 2018 Australian HR Awards.

“Our company provides a great avenue for young people to gain work experience, semi-retirees looking for something different, or those between jobs seeking short-term work,” Ben says.

“No experience is necessary. We provide training for the various roles which include general grain handling, bunker operations, weighbridge operations and grain classification.”

The range of available roles include:

  • General grain handling – makes up the majority of Viterra’s harvest work. Involves using site equipment and machinery to unload grain from the trucks.
  • Bunker operations – revolve around the storage of grain on site, operating equipment to unload grain trucks, handling bunker ground covers and tarpaulins and directing traffic.
  • Weighbridge operators – weigh grain trucks when they arrive and again before the truck leaves the site, recording data for each load.
  • Grain classification – involves assessing the characteristics of grain to determine the appropriate grade.
  • Supervisory roles – for people experienced in leading a team in an operational environment.
  • Service centre (Adelaide only) – provide customer service to grain growers in a call centre environment.
  • Laboratory grain analysts (Adelaide only) – assist with general testing of Viterra commodities, report on related grain analysis and other lab requirements.

The SA grain industry contributes about $2 billion to the state’s economy every year and continues to be an important source of quality Australian grain exports to the rest of the world.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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