FARMERS are not used to being spoilt for choice.
But right now they are.
Beef, lamb, dairy, wool, even hides and sheep skins.
They are all going through the roof.
The only hiccup has been the grains industry. And that has not been for want of trying.
Had our bizarre weather patterns not occurred, grain would also have been enjoying its best season in decades.
And even there all is not lost.
Because even though much of the last harvest did suffer downgrades, farmers the length and breadth of the eastern states can go to bed each night knowing the drought has well and truly broken.
There is no doubt that over the coming 12 months they will make a lot more money out of the mud in their paddocks than they would have if it was still dust.
All agricultural Australia's key fundamentals are aligned with the stars - and the star signs are good.
Many of our major global competitors in several markets, such as South America in beef and Canada (rain) and eastern Europe (drought) in grain, battled to meet domestic demand.
Of course, a surging dollar hangs over all agriculture, but equally the signs are there the long-awaited supply-demand equation to feed the world's increasing, and increasingly affluent, population is finally starting to kick in.
Which, dollar or no dollar, is good news for surplus producers such as Australia.
Yes, in the short term some industries will need time to recover from floods and cyclones, particularly in Queensland.
Yes, many paddocks in Victoria's north and west still resemble rice paddies.
But the market is moving rapidly into an incredibly bullish period. Right down to the stud bull selling season, in which prices are also soaring as restockers take advantage of conditions to fast-track the genetic profiles of their herds.
Perhaps Ouyen Livestock Exchange chairman and local farmer Gerald Leach summed it up best this week when, in a typically farming understatement, he said local producers were "pretty positive at the moment because lamb and mutton prices are fantastic and wool is coming up".
"It is good when things come together and they are prices we never dreamt of getting."
Honestly, what more needs to be said?
