Australia: bumper cotton crop unaffected by rain
Reuters has reported that Australia still has hopes for a bumper cotton crop, despite a week-long deluge in major growing regions that forced thousands of residents from their homes and left rivers swollen.
Australia is the world’s third-largest cotton and sugar exporter, fourth-largest wheat exporter and a big supplier of other agricultural and mineral commodities. Heavy rains a year ago contributed to one of the country’s biggest decreases in GDP in 20 years over the first quarter. Eastern Australian agricultural belts have been experienced flood rains for the second year running, with at least two more months of the summer wet season to go.
Industry body Cotton Australia said it still expected a record national cotton harvest of 5 million bales this year, far outpacing 2011’s record 4 million bales.
“There will be damage, but cotton crops are fairly resistant and we’re still expecting around 5 million bales,” the group’s national director of communications, David Bone, told Reuters.
He said that it was too early to fully assess any damage to cotton crops due to continued flooding in some areas and it would take about a week from when rains fully subside before a thorough measure of the crop could be conducted.
