LOW rainfall and export uncertainty from the COVID-19 emergency is forcing local farmers to decrease the varieties of grains being sown this season.
Mallee dryland farmer Paul Kaesler – based just outside of Loxton – began planting his grain crops for the upcoming season over the weekend.
Mr Kaesler said low rainfall levels made it necessary to scale back the sowing of some cereal varieties this year.
“We’re going to sow vetch, barley, wheat, peas, canola and maybe some chickepeas,” Mr Kaesler said.
“We’ve been dropping back some varieties like canola and chickpeas because the year’s getting drier. In a good year we would expand them, but not so much in the not so good years.
“It would be nice to have a rain for Anzac Day like it always does.”
Mr Kaesler said uncertainty in important international markets due to the coronavirus outbreak could affect the export sales of his grains.
“Wheat and barley are normally your big inputs and you get the good value there,” he said.
“But it’s really hard to know this year. We have a lot of export stuff going on and we don’t know how the freights moving.
“We don’t know which countries are going to buy what crops from where.
“We have to do some exports because people still need to eat, so countries that buy grain will still need it. It’s just how that we don’t know.”
However, Mr Kaesler said he would “have no issues” following social distancing guidelines while working on his farm.
“I’ll be in the best isolation of all, sitting in a tractor cab the whole time,” he said.