Cane growers around Ingham are struggling under the dual burden of plummeting sugar prices and the ongoing impact of the disastrous March floods. Two separate flood peaks hit the Herbert River sugar cane district, ripping up thousands of hectares of farmland and causing $15 million in local infrastructure damage alone. At the same time, a global glut exacerbated by sugar subsidies paid by the Pakistan and Indian governments, led to sugar prices crashing. At a current 2018 price of around $380 per tonne, worldwide sugar prices are below the cost of production. Canegrowers Herbert River chair and local grower, Michael Pisano, said figures he had seen equated to a loss of half a million tonnes of cane, following a near-record crop last year. "Smaller plantings, larger fallows at the end of the year is what I'm hearing from a lot of growers." Mr Pisano said at least 1,300 hectares of cane land was a complete write-off, unable to be harvested this year. "If we can finish the season in mid-November, hopefully we can recover the crop so 2019 will look better for us," he said. Wilmar Cane Supply Manager, Paul Giordani, said more time was needed before such large write-downs were made. "Our preliminary crop estimate of 4.77 million tonnes of cane is around five per cent lower than our earlier expectation," he said. "These are early estimates and the final crop size will be largely dependent on what happens over the next six months. Mr Giordani said Wilmar expected a total crush of 16.22 million tonnes across its eight mills, with other regions making up for losses in the Herbert.

Mapping losses

Herbert Cane Productivity Services has used the latest technology to assess the damage, much of which was not evident for several weeks after the floods receded. Manager Lawrence di Bella said the use of satellite mapping combined with drone vision helped quantify the extent of the losses. "We've now been able to acquire images after the flood event and we can now see major flood damage," he said. Following drone assessment, stalk weights and samples showed the damage was greater than anticipated in some parts of the lower Herbert, downstream of Ingham. "The losses are definitely higher than we initially thought, on the cane yield especially," Mr di Bella said. Mr di Bella said the size of the loss surprised even experienced growers and would be the third worst in history for many growers, surpassing the 1977 flood in terms of devastation. Source - http://www.abc.net.au