Australian Wildfires Impact on Agriculture
January 14, 2020
Having burned more than 28 million acres, the Australian wildfires are larger than the recent wildfires in California and the Amazon combined.
The fires have devastated large areas in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia, which is mostly dense native vegetation, forests, and national parks.
That being said, the agricultural industry has also been hit hard by the damage with the milk industry being impacted the most. Dairy Australia Ltd reports that two industry veterans were actually killed by the fires, power outages have been wide spread preventing the cooling of milk, and tankers are unable to access the dairies to collect the milk. It is estimated by just one processor that 238,000 gallons of milk could not be collected and an additional 264,000 gallon supply may be threatened.
The meat industry is close behind with estimates of 80,000 ranching properties being located in the affected areas. Thus far, losses of 1.7 million sheep and 450,000 head of cattle are estimated to have been casualties of the fires. However, this only factors to a 2.4% reduction in the national sheep flock and 1.8% drop in 2020 total cattle population. The loss of sheep is also expected to impact the wool industry and the output of shorn wool is forecasted to drop 9.2% from numbers already declining due to the pervasive drought being experienced.
The fruit and wine industries are not expected to be heavily impacted by the fires and, thus far, only minimal reports of damage have been received.
The combination of drought and scorched farm land paint a bleak picture for summer Sorghum crops. Early planting was reported as minimal and, as the heavy rainfall needed to support late planting is unlikely, production is expected to reach a record low of 398,000 tons.
