Grains Industry, March 2006
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Tackling Weeds on Private Land - Grains Industry Analysis March 2006 Tackling Weeds on Private Land Initiative stakeholder analysis grains industry march 2006 Department of Sustainability and Environment Department of Primary Industries Tackling Weeds on Private Land - Grains Industry Analysis March 2006 Published by: Department of Primary Industries Catchment and Agriculture Services 1 Spring Street Melbourne, Victoria 3000 Australia March 2006 © The State of Victoria, 2005 This publication is copyright. No part may be reproduced by any process except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Authorised by: Victorian Government 1 Treasury Place Melbourne, Victoria 3000 Australia ISBN 978-1-74199-309-7(print) ISBN 978-1-74199-310-3 (online) Disclaimer This publication may be of assistance to you but the State of Victoria and its employees do not guarantee that the publication is without flaw of any kind or is wholly appropriate for your particular purposes and therefore disclaims all liability for any error, loss or other consequence which may arise from you relying on any information in this publication. Acknowledgments Author: Catriona King Catchment and Agriculture Services Department of Primary Industries The Tackling Weeds on Private Land initiative is funded by the Department of Sustainability and Environment. For more information on this report contact: Julie McGeary Department of Primary Industries 402-406 Mair Street Ballarat, Victoria 3350 Phone (03) 5336 6609 For more information about this program contact the Customer Service Centre on 136 186. For more information about DSE visit the website www.dse.vic.gov.au For more information about DPI visit the website www.dpi.vic.gov.au Tackling Weeds on Private Land - Grains Industry Analysis March 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS SUMMARY ......................................................................................................................................................... I 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 1 2. GRAINS INDUSTRY OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................... 1 2.1 Australia.................................................................................................................................................. 1 2.1.1 Key Industry Participants ............................................................................................................... 4 2.1.2 Main uses for Australian grain. .................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Victoria .................................................................................................................................................... 6 2.3 Sowing Seed............................................................................................................................................ 8 2.3.1 Seed Quality Assurance Schemes.................................................................................................. 8 2.4 Feed Grains............................................................................................................................................. 9 2.4.1 Interstate Grain Transfers ............................................................................................................. 9 2.4.2 Feed Grain Market Sectors ........................................................................................................... 10 2.4.3 Feed Grain Marketing ................................................................................................................... 11 2.4.4 Feed Grain Quality Standards ..................................................................................................... 12 3. GRAINS INDUSTRY AND WEED SPREAD POTENTIAL...................................................................... 12 3.1 Weed spread pathways of grain crops ........................................................................................... 12 3.2 Grain Receival Standards and the CaLP Act .................................................................................. 15 3.3 Modelling of potential volume of weed seed contamination in grains ................................... 15 3.4. Grains industry weed spread pathways in addition to grain crops........................................ 17 4. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................ 18 5. REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................................. 19 APPENDIX 1 : AWB FEED GRAIN RECEIVAL STANDARDS –WEED SEED CONTAMINATION ........ 20 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Australian grain production - 5 year average to 2003/04........................................................... 2 Table 2: Grain production by State.................................................................................................................... 7 Table 3: Victoria’s grain production as proportion of total Australian production............................... 7 Table 4: Feed Grains as a proportion of total grain production in Australia........................................... 9 Table 5: Feed Grain Transfers to Victoria ...................................................................................................... 10 Table 6: Feed Grain consumption by Livestock species.............................................................................. 11 Table 7: Number of tonnes of contaminated grain (by weeds) in each agro-ecological zone ............ 14 Table 8: Proportion contaminated grain of total production across all agro-ecological zones......... 14 Table 9: Potential levels of declared weeds in Victorian feed grain allowable by grain receival standards............................................................................................................................................................... 17 Figure 1: Number and size of Australian grain farms................................................................................... 2 Figure 2: Markets for Australian Grain............................................................................................................. 6 Tackling Weeds on Private Land - Grains Industry Analysis March 2006 Summary Australia produced an average of 37.6 million tonnes of grain annually for the 5 year period to 2003/04. Of this amount, 63% is exported, 12% is used domestically for human consumption and industrial use, 23% for stock feed and 2% for sowing seed. Victoria accounts for 14% or some 5 million tonnes of the national production. Feed grain is a major market for Victorian grain, accounting for some 41% of the total production (compared with 23% for all of Australia). Demand for feed grains is increasing. In 2003/04, Victorian produced feed grain met 74% of the demand by the Victorian livestock industry, with the remainder, some 718 ktonnes being transported into Victoria from New South Wales, Western Australia and to a lesser extent, overseas. Feed grain is considered the highest risk for weed spread compared with other grain types and uses, mainly due to the way in which it may be distributed across the landscape. Processing feed (eg into pellets) reduces the weed spread risk. The grains industry is very large and diverse with many organisations and companies involved. There are a variety of codes of practice and standards developed and monitored by different bodies throughout the industry. Weed contamination is an important issue for the industry, however the main mechanism for setting price, the receival standard, tolerates a threshold of weed seed contamination for a variety of weeds, including declared weeds. This technically places grain buyers and sellers in breach of the CaLP Act. Some studies have been conducted to try to quantify the level of weed contamination in grain. One found that 59 – 61% of cereal and pulse seed samples (retained for sowing in Victoria) did not meet seed certification standards (contained greater than 15 foreign seeds per kg). A national study found that some 2.4% by weight of grain contained a level of weed seed contamination which resulted in a price penalty for growers. This report then used the findings from these studies to model potential levels of weed seed in feed grains in Victoria. The model showed that some 65.4 ktonnes of feed grain contaminated with weed seeds is potentially moved into and used in Victoria each year. Further, if it is assumed that this volume of grain contains a threshold level of weed seeds allowed by grain receival standards, the table below illustrates a potential level of Victorian declared weed seeds which could be present in feed grain. This scenario does have some limitations due to lack of available data. One the one hand, it is an underestimate as it does not include feed grain contaminated with some weed seeds but lower than the receival standard threshold. On the other hand it could be an overestimate as the majority of the weed species are likely to be agricultural rather than declared weeds, although declared weeds are certainly present in some cases. In addition, the data does not take into account the fact that grains processed for livestock feed (eg into pellets) confer a much