Crop Harvesting

Grain is one of Australian farming’s most valuable commodities, but a conflict on the other side of the world is affecting how it grows and how it is harvested.  This year’s winter crop is under threat due to a global fertiliser shortage, and farmers are being warned that worse could still be ahead.

After moving to Kenya 15 years ago Aussie farmer Stuart Barden's dream has become reality. The 55-year-old is helping change the face of the country's cropping industry. 

Fruit and vegetable producers in one of Western Australia's key food growing regions are counting the cost of Cyclone Narelle, with one banana grower reporting more than 80 per cent of his crop has been destroyed.

Two years after farmers began feeling the impacts of what were then record dry conditions, many are celebrating what they say could be the end of the drought.

Local brewers are experimenting with new flavours, while some farms invest in US-made machinery to modernise and streamline the harvest process.

Sales of netting to protect fruit crops from extreme weather have increased in the past five years as researchers warn heatwaves will continue to impact agriculture.

Western Australia's grain growers are on track to deliver a record harvest this season, breaking the previous 2022 record by almost 2 million tonnes.

New techniques and technology are allowing southern NSW grain growers to produce a harvest, despite significantly below-average rainfall. 

When 22-year-old Tanguy Bodiguel's friends said they were travelling to Australia, he left them in Sydney to work on a farm with sentimental value. 

Amid the red dirt, termite mounds and buffel grass, the first barley harvest is finished at Central Australia's Athelle Outback Hideaway.

A group dedicated to Australian grain farming created more than a decade ago has just cracked 100,000 followers with about 20,000 people following from overseas.

A trial showing industrial hemp can be grown year-round has farmers excited about the crop's "huge" potential.

Forget the Hottest 100 music countdown, farmers have their own annual music poll to get though the long harvest after two consecutive years of drought. 

Growers at Walgett are grinning from ear to ear as they fill their silos with a bumper grain harvest. 

Severe weather has swept through large parts of the Great Southern and Wheatbelt, causing significant damage to crops during the critical harvest period.

While they are a long way off from rivalling the plantings in Western Australia or New South Wales, growers in Queensland are experimenting with canola and reaping the rewards.

Queensland strawberry growers are finishing their season early due to hot weather, while cold temperatures have delayed ripening in the south.

Farmers in Western Australia have begun harvesting a grain crop that could set a new record. It is a different story on the other side of the Nullabor though.

After months of dust and dry skies, farmers on South Australia's Limestone Coast have welcomed early spring rain and a promising season ahead.  

A Cairns biotech startup is combining Indigenous knowledge of "rainmaking" with modern science to develop an electrical seed treatment hoping to improve crop growth.