Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Issue:

Mackay and Whitsunday Life

Information Sessions Deliver For Growers

The results of our grower survey last year made it quite apparent that growers who market with Wilmar believe that the market information we provide is one of the most important services of our Grower Marketing team.

One way we keep growers up to date is via shed meetings and information sessions which we recently held in Proserpine, Ingham and the Burdekin.

It’s always thoroughly enjoyable for the team to get out and about, meeting with growers, learning more about their businesses and hearing what works for them.

With the current turmoil in global markets, it was a timely update given the uncertainty within the world. It was also a great opportunity to have our Risk Manager Bevan Patterson up from Brisbane to review the current Wilmar forecasts on global demand and supply, and try to make some sense of the chaos.

Currently we forecast a small net surplus in sugar for the upcoming season which is highly dependent on Brazil delivering another record crop of 42 million tonnes of sugar. Harvest is about to get under way in Brazil and the dry start to the year may result in yields underperforming current forecasts.

As Brazil accounts for nearly three quarters of global seaborne trade, any slip in production could see a surplus turn into a deficit, and higher prices.

The global market turmoil triggered by the tariff tit for tat has caused the AUD to be extremely volatile as traders analyse the impact on a trading nation like Australia. It is not often that we see the AUD below 60 cents and it has masked some of the drop in the #11 sugar price fall.

In better news, our 2024 season pools and allocation account continue to outperform, and we will soon release our quarterly performance and comparative analysis for January to March. Keep an eye on your inbox for that later this month. The analysis continues to show that growers are significantly better off by marketing with Wilmar, irrespective of the mechanisms used for GEI sugar pricing.

After a few days out of the office and in the regions catching up with our growers, it is great to see the sun shining and the fields drying out. We hope the rainy days are behind us, and we will soon see a hive of activity out on the farms as planting begins.

Wilmar Grower Marketing Business Development Manager Owen Richards addresses Burdekin growers
at a recent information session. Photo supplied

In other news