VICTORIAN HARVEST

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 66, 10 December 1937, Page 8

VICTORIAN HARVEST

Wbeatgrowers Jubilant Less than two months ago Ansttralian wheatgrowers were in fhe depths of despond at the prospects of a wheat crop failure as a result of the drought. To-day in Victoria they are jubilant. The drought broke in Oetober, and as a result it is expected that one of the best harvests on record will he garnered. The estimate mad© by the agricultural editor of the Leader, whose figures are accepted by the trade as authoritative, now pntB the yield down at 43,000,000 bushels, an average- ( of 16.4 bushels to the acre, from an area of 2,600.000 acrea. This is the best harvest since 1932-33, when 47,830,000 bushels were threshed from a larger area. The record crop was taken in 193031, when, as a Tesult of the; '-'Grow More Wheat" campaign, "Vi'ctoriaii growers sowed 4,600.000 acres and harvested a total of 53,814,639 bushels. The wheat acreage decreased as a resultj of the unremunerative prices offering during the years of the depression. In 1926-27 the Melbourne price for wheat averaged abont 5s 3d a bushel. By 1932-33 it had fallen to. as low as 2s lOd a bushel — a price at which growers could not possibly have continued production. In the following year the average price rose to 3s 3 Jd, and since then the market has continued to favour thq grower, curren-t priceg being in the vicinity of 5s a bushel. The one consolation New Zealand growers can get from the foregoing is that the . bumper- crop in" Australia will provide ample wheat for export, and as this Dominion will have to im--port heavily for- next season's requirements the priee should not be raised t'o an undue extent. 1 0