The future for sorghum pricing looks positive, with continued demand from China and strong consumption domestically, but analysts fear Australia's limited capability to ship its farmed product out of the country will penalise profits.
"Sorghum is looking good for export as well as domestically," said Adam Robinson, Robinson Grain Trading. "We had a big crop last year and we'll have another one this season.
"There is strong demand from China for both Baijiu and stock feed.
"Sorghum has come back from its high, but it is still relatively strong. As for price, China is the king. They take just a bit less than 80 per cent of the crop and the domestic markets soaks up the rest - about a million-plus tonnes."
Robinson Grain's Dubbo site manager, Trent Robinson (also on our cover), said inquiry about sorghum in particular had been strong.
"There are people that are thinking about putting sorghum in that have never grown it before, just purely on the back of not being able to sow their winter crop because it was too wet, so they've been looking at other options. Some guys are looking at sorghum, or sunflowers," he said.
He said growers weren't too worried about storage and the container option to port remained ok at the moment.
"I think they (growers) just want to grow a crop - while the moisture's there you take it," he said.
Machalie McCormack, IGrain, said growers would be looking to capitalise on soil moisture, a wet forecast and the "massive question mark" over winter crops in the ground.
"Personally, I would be watching sorghum pricing closely, if I was a grower. If a wet harvest rolls around again the amount of feed quality grains on the eastern seaboard would be in an oversupply. Sorghum, barley and stockfeed wheat all compete with sorghum."
Last summer's sorghum crop measured 2.7m/t according to ABARES, which predicts 1.9m/t this season.
Rabobank agricultural analyst Dennis Voznesenski warns that constrictions to export at port, something of a new normal in the wake of the pandemic, will determine how much sorghum can actually leave the country - and therefore the price.
Domestically sorghum will go head-to-head with wheat and barley as a measure of livestock feed rations which will determine price.
In other grains, gritting corn contracts have come back a long way in recent weeks with large volumes in the US.
Sunflowers are a relatively a small crop in Australia - 29,000t compared to 6m/t of canola - to be influenced in price by other oils, especially canola and if Canada begins to turn off the volumes it is capable of, then the price for sunflower oil will ease, Mr Voznesenski says.
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