TWO years ago, when the rice crop plunged to a record low, the mill towns in the Riverina region in southern NSW were facing a bleak future.
Rice mills in Deniliquin and Coleambally were mothballed, while Leeton's SunRice mill - the biggest employer in town - was forced to cut the number of shifts on offer, The Australian reports.
But thanks to a summer crop that set a world record for yield, the local industry is enjoying a resurgence. The Leeton mill is running three daily shifts instead of one, and it's hoped that if the region produces another good crop next year, the mills at Deniliquin and Coleambally will roar back to life.
While the Riverina's crop this season was still relatively small - less than 20 per cent of that produced across the region in the pre-drought years - it returned an incredible average of 11 tonnes to the hectare, largely thanks to perfect weather conditions.
Mike Hedditch from SunRice, the grower-owned body that mills and markets the rice in the Riverina, described the return as "absolutely spectacular".
"It is a world record (in terms of tonnes to hectare) by a country mile, and it beats the previous world record which our own growers held of 10.2 tonnes a hectare in the 2003 harvest," Mr Hedditch said.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, the average world rice yield last year was 3.8 tonnes a hectare, up from 1.7 tonnes a hectare in 1960.
Last year, the Australian rice industry produced 63,000 tonnes, and the year before just 17,600 tonnes, the smallest crop since the industry began in 1928.
So far, the 2010 harvest has produced 205,000 tonnes - still well behind the 2006 yield of 1,003,000 tonnes.
"We have recruited additional staff to process the larger crop," Mr Hedditch said of SunRice, which currently employs 320 people, most of them in Leeton. He said the local community had been buoyed by the increased mill activity.
"The outlook is certainly more positive right now," Mr Hedditch said.
Farmer Glen Andreazza has grown rice just south of Griffith in NSW for 27 years.
"They are the best yields I have ever had," he said of the recent crop. Over his 83ha, Mr Andreazza averaged 13.8 tonnes a hectare. Three-quarters of his crop received the premium price of $550 a tonne.
"It is an excellent price; I don't think we will see that ever again, " he said.
Last year, water allocations reached 27 per cent of Riverina's growers' quotas - in some recent drought years they received no water allocation at all.
Ricegrowers Association of Australia executive director Ruth Wade is hopeful there will be more water available this year and next, and a bigger rice crop.
"We have secured the Leeton Mill," Ms Wade said.
"That is now going back into increased production, and next year we would hope we would get enough rice to potentially get one of the other mills open."
Read more on The Australian.
