11/14/07 Observations from a recent visitor to Australia

Farm and Ranch November 14, 2007 Australian farmers are harvesting their second consecutive drought ravaged wheat crop. It's one reason wheat prices are record high. Mary Corp of Umatilla County Oregon Extension, recently visited the Australian wheat growing areas of Victoria and Western Australia. Corp: "When I was there I looked at the wheat crop and it was obviously under a lot of stress and didn't look like it was going to have a very significant yield. And I also visited with some growers and they were feeling a lot of pressure from the bank and production problems and issues like that related to the drought." As an impact of the drought an Australian national health body said last month that one farmer was taking his life every four days, double the national suicide rate. Corp: "Plus I visited with some extension and researchers when I was there and they were doing with programming with the growers to help them know what is available to assist them as they were trying to deal with the stress." Corp says Australia feels like it has seen a climate change and there is talk of some land coming out of production. Corp: "Yes, permanently leaving it out. Some of their river flows are down or nonexistent in some areas. So they are re-evaluating some of the farm ground." Tomorrow, some observations on no-till down under, weed resistance and the Australian Wheat Board. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.