How the wind changes.

How a year and a disgusting spell of wet weather can change everything...

This time last year arable farmers were finally seeing some upward adjustment to feed wheat prices as they climbed to $480 a tonne. After a decade of rising input costs with no corresponding inflationary adjustment to the price this was justice to many, but one year on and Farmgirl looks on to some big farms in the area that are rumoured to still have 5000 tonnes of milling and feed wheat on the ground, in danger of significant sprouting as the weather continues its vile wet track across the Canterbury province.

The milling wheat still to be harvested will be downgraded to feed quality and that means there could be a large surplus on the market - good news for dairy farmers, but yet again at the cost of their arable counterparts.

$320 to $380 a tonne seems to be where the price is sitting right now and that's not enough to encourage arable farmers to continue planting good tonnages.

Next year, yet again, it may all be very different.