GRAIN growers are seeking an urgent meeting with Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig over the looming crisis facing the nation's grain harvest.
Rain bands extending from Queensland to Victoria were expected to cause huge damage to cereal crops across the eastern grain belt, potentially costing the industry hundreds of millions of dollars in milling quality grain downgraded to stockfeed.
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"We have a natural disaster developing at the moment," said NSW Farmers Association grain committee chairman Mark Hoskinson. "Queensland already had a lot of downgraded grain. This is a cancer creeping south."
The NSWFA grains committee held a teleconference yesterday to discuss growers' plight.
Mr Hoskinson said NSWFA president Charles Armstrong would invite Mr Ludwig to view first-hand the situation facing farmers and hopefully put proposals to him.
He said growers were worried weather-damaged grain would be sold at "firesale" levels.
"There is no buyer obliged to buy weather-damaged grain any more with the demise of the single desk," he said.
But an AWB spokesman said there was no difficulty selling feed grain internationally.
He said South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam were estimated to need four to five million tonnes of feed-wheat between them.
The spokesman said China might need about two million tonnes of feed grain.
The damaging rain may lift world prices of milling grain.
The Commonwealth Bank's commodities research arm said world markets were watching what effect the rain would have on milling-wheat supplies.
Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said his country might import grain to keep domestic prices low.
Global wheat prices skyrocketed in August after Russia, announced an export ban following the hottest summer on record and a severe drought.
