No trip to Australia would be complete for me without a visit to my wife’s cousin Trevor Allison and his wife Vivian in Mount Barker, 400km south of Perth in Western Australia.

Trevor is a family legend. His Tipperary-born father panned for gold in New Zealand. Trevor came to Australia in the 1950s to clear 1,000 acres of bush offered to them by Vivian’s Dad. Not alone did he clear that 1,000 acres but went on to clear and reclaim another 10,000 acres in subsequent decades.

Up until the late 1990s, the cleared land was farmed with extensive sheep flocks and suckler cows. Year-round grazing allowed just a few farm staff to cope with huge stock numbers.

Replanting

Then Trevor began to replant some of the cleared land with blue gum eucalyptus trees. Just like the forestry premium in Ireland, the Japanese government paid Australian growers carbon credits for growing the blue gums, which went for paper manufacture. Also Trevor’s shire council wanted more trees planted to reduce salinity, which threatened a local river.

The blue gums grew like weeds and were harvested twice at 10-year gaps. Indeed, the business initially went so well that Trevor Allison put about 5,000 acres back into trees. Many of his neighbours did likewise as several companies climbed aboard the blue gum express.

As might be expected, some of the late entry companies are in trouble. Trevor is OK on this front, but his son Ross and grandson Kieran have now made another big move.

Tillage

They have switched into large-scale tillage. This has happened primarily on the cleared land, but blue gum ground is being reclaimed for cropping as well. And on this farm you are talking thousands of acres at each turn.

Their crop package is familiar – oilseed rape, (known locally as canola), wheat and barley.

Our arrival in Mount Barker in early January coincided with the final day of harvesting. The Allisons’ first cropping season had gone well.

Their end of harvest overall average yields, according to their super-smart combine harvester, and excluding the farm selling prices, are shown in Table 1.

By Australian standards these yields were very good, especially the canola yield. And the grain was harvested at about 12% moisture.

At an exchange rate of A$1.43 per euro, this works out at €213/t for wheat, €212/t for barley and €369/t for oilseed rape.

I verified these prices by cross-checking with grain traders. Also, feedlots in Queensland were purchasing grains at these prices. Indeed, malting barley had a spot price of A$330/t in early January. The Allison barley was feed grade. The wheat was destined for noodles.

The Allisons don’t plough. Their gear for cropping includes a tractor, a tiller/sower which places fertilizer with seed, a sprayer and combine harvester, transporter and storage bins, all of which are large. The tractor and harvester are fitted with GPS. They top-dressed crops with fertilizer and at least one fungicide.

Pre-harvest Round Up was applied by helicopter as putting the tractor/sprayer into the mature crop could cause 4% loss of yield according to Ross Allison. The move into cropping involved getting the pH up with ground limestone.

P and K fertilizer were on a par with Ireland, nitrogen a little cheaper (I was quoted A$500/t, or €350/t if I took 500t). Lime was dearer than at home, fungicides a little cheaper.

It is reckoned that the average Western Australian cereal farmer in 2013 had a turnover of about A$1.2m (€840,000) to make a profit of about A$150,000 (€105,000). In south Western Australia I was told I could lease cereal ground for A$30 (€21) per acre, but useful grazing land would cost A$60/acre.

Why are cereal prices higher in Australia than in Ireland? All grain imports are banned on grounds of plant health and Australia has a history of state monopolies on grain purchase and export via the old Wheat Board.

I can only assume that the home market is still subsidising the exports through GrainCorp in New South Wales and CBH (Co-op Bulk Handling) in Western Australia.

The killer cost in Australia is transport. This is payable by the grower and averages about A$26/t (€18.20/t) in Western Australia.

At 10,000 acres, the Allison holding is nothing special in the area. Although Australia is more than 100 times bigger than the Republic of Ireland, the number of holdings is similar; Australia 135,000, Ireland 112,000. Overall, the scale in Australia is just so different.