Queensland cane growers are reminded that they only have until 31 October to choose which sugar marketer they would like to use for next season.
Since the introduction of Marketing Choice in 2017, growers have been able to choose whether they wish to use their miller or their industry-owned marketer, Queensland Sugar Limited (QSL), for pricing, payment and marketing services.
QSL’s Marketing General Manager Mark Hampson said strong prices on the ICE 11 raw sugar market had already seen high levels of growers complete the marketing nomination process in order to access grower-managed pricing for next season, with 2023-Season prices now also drawing increasing interest.
“Growers appreciate that it’s been four years since we’ve seen raw sugar prices at these sorts of levels, and so they’ve been very busy making the most of it by undertaking forward pricing,” Mr Hampson said.
“We’ve seen QSL growers lock in record levels of pricing this year and next season is already heavily priced, with $560/tonne gross actual the highest 2022-Season Target Price order filled to date, and $575/tonne gross actual filled against the July 2022 contract in our Individual Futures Contract option.”
Mr Hampson said 2023-Season pricing had hit the $500/t gross actual mark late last month against the July 2023 contract, while the highest grower pricing achieved for the 2024 Season was currently $465/tonne gross actual against the July 2024 contract.
“After three consecutive seasons where the average market price was less than $390/tonne and then climbed to just $429/tonne last season, it’s fantastic to not only see strong prices but have them extend across multiple seasons, enabling growers to potentially lock in profitable prices for the crops to come,” he said.
QSL, a not-for-profit, has Australia’s largest range of sugar pricing options for cane growers, enabling growers to price as little as 10 tonnes on the international ICE 11 raw sugar market.
World-leading technology has landed in Mackay, bringing Queensland one step closer to a $1 billion sustainable, export-oriented industrial biotechnology and bioproducts sector.
Mercurius has finalised commissioning and is about to commence operations at their pilot plant that will use their patented REACHTM technology to produce valuable renewable chemicals, diesel and jet fuel from sugarcane waste.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Mackay, which is in the heart of sugarcane country, was the perfect place for this trial to take place.
“I first met with Mercurius on a trade mission to the United States in 2017,” the Premier said.
“They were attracted to Queensland because of my government’s commitment to developing a biofuels industry here.
“This project signals the start of a new industry for the region which means local jobs and further strengthens Mackay’s credentials as a leading biorefinery location.
“The plant at the Queensland University of Technology’s Biocommodities Facility in Mackay will be fully operational over a three-month period.
“My government has helped get this project off the ground, providing support through the Jobs and Regional Growth fund.”
Member for Mackay Julieanne Gilbert said it’s an exciting time for the region with the project providing jobs for around 30 people.
“It’s great to see equipment finally here and being commissioned,” she said.
“I’m proud that Mackay is now going to be looked at on a world stage during this three-month trial.”
The technology converts a range of biomass feedstocks into:
highly price-competitive, renewable ‘drop-in’ fuels that can be tailored for use in jet and diesel engines (unlike biodiesel, the fuel requires no modification for retail sale) renewable chemicals for bio-based industrial plastics such as bottles, textiles, food packaging, carpets, electronic materials and automotive applications. The REACH™ process avoids the need for the use of pure sugars, high operating temperatures and high pressures, resulting in faster conversion rate and lower cost of production than current processes.
Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development Steven Miles said the project was only the beginning for Queensland’s biofutures sector.
“We will bring more high-value jobs to the regions and make more things in Queensland,” Mr Miles said.
“The industrial biotechnology and bioproducts sector will attract significant international investment and create regional, high-value and knowledge-intensive jobs in manufacturing.
“Regions like Mackay are perfectly placed to take advantage of the opportunities this industry presents.
“If the operations are successful Mercurius will also prepare studies for another demo facility to be based in regional Queensland which would scale up production leading to even more jobs.
“Supporting projects like this is part of the Queensland Government’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan.”
Representatives from QUT will work alongside Mercurius to examine the technology and valuable by-products to enhance commercialisation opportunities in Queensland.
Mercurius CEO and Technology Development Director Karl Seck has been in Mackay assisting in site preparations for the pilot equipment installation and commissioning.
“Queensland was the best location for us to run this pilot plant and we hope to see success so we can move forward with plans for a larger demonstration plant,” Mr Seck said.
“The potential broader economic and environmental benefits derived from our REACHTM technology is significant for both the region and the low carbon intensity biofuel industry and we are excited to get started here in Queensland.”
Project leader from QUT’s Centre for Agriculture and Bioeconomy and Advance Queensland Research Fellow Dr Darryn Rackemann welcomed the progress on the project.
“This is transformative technology and to be part of the pilot process is fantastic”, Dr Rackemann said.
“QUT will be looking into the commercial opportunities from the REACHTM technology which could lead to producing renewable fuels and chemicals in Queensland creating new jobs and opportunities for regional communities.”
This project has been funded through the Jobs and Regional Growth fund and aligns with the Queensland Government’s Biofutures industry development roadmap and action plan to support and inspire Queensland businesses secure their share of the global bioproducts and services market.
Charting a prosperous future for the industry and regional communities
Sugarcane industry peak bodies and the Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia (CRCNA) are partnering to develop the first whole-of-industry shared vision and roadmap to 2040.
The Sugarcane Industry Roadmap will adopt a best-for-industry view to identify significant opportunities to drive sustainability, growth and prosperity of the industry and regional communities into the future.
CRCNA Chief Executive Officer Anne Stünzner said the roadmap will identify the future forces likely to impact the industry, establish agreed priorities and provide insight into the skills, resources, innovation and infrastructure needed for future success.
“For more than 100 years, the sugarcane industry has been a major economic and social contributor to regional communities across Queensland and northern New South Wales and has demonstrated a thirst for innovation and new technology,” Ms Stünzner said.
She said industry organisations have recognised the need to complement and enhance the traditional raw sugar production model to improve productivity and diversify revenue sources.
“While the industry faces economic, environmental and social challenges, there is significant opportunity to expand to become a multi-product, ‘sugar plus’ industry with potential for alternate markets such as biofuels and bioplastics,” Ms Stünzner said.
The roadmap initiative has the joint backing of five sugarcane industry organisations – Sugar Research Australia, CANEGROWERS, the Australian Sugar Milling Council, AgForce and the Australian Cane Farmers Association – with funding also provided by the CRCNA and the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Sugar Research Australia Chief Executive Officer Roslyn Baker said the project will involve extensive engagement across the sugarcane industry value chain to co-develop a plan for the future.
“The roadmap will address both the immediate enhancements and improvements that can be made for a stronger industry, as well as longer-term opportunities to enter new markets, to diversify into new crops and products, and alternative uses for core industry assets,” Ms Baker said.
She said the roadmap will support the industry to bring to life a vision relevant to all sugarcane regions while cultivating greater agility to embrace local opportunities.
“This initiative is about generational change and putting industry in the driver’s seat to build an exciting and prosperous future,” Ms Baker said.
Stakeholder engagement sessions are underway. The roadmap is due to be finalised in early 2022.
The list of ‘deadly animals in Australia’ just got a little weirder. The cane toad, a toxic, invasive species notorious for devouring anything it can fit in its mouth — household rubbish, small rodents and even birds — has become highly cannibalistic in the 86 years since it was introduced to the continent, according to a new study. Its counterpart in South America, where cane toads originated, is far less cannibalistic.
The discovery could help researchers to understand the evolutionary underpinnings of how this uncommon and extreme behaviour emerges. Scientists have seen cannibalism evolve in species before, says Volker Rudolf, a community ecologist at Rice University in Texas, who studies the phenomenon. But what’s exciting about this work, he says, is that the researchers are almost seeing it “develop in front of their eyes”, given that the behaviour arose in less than a hundred years — the blink of an eye by evolutionary standards.
“These toads have gotten to the point where their own worst enemy is themselves,” says Jayna DeVore, an invasive-species biologist at Tetiaroa Society, a non-profit organization in French Polynesia, and a co-author of the study, which was published on 23 August in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America1. Scientists estimate that there are well over 200 million of the amphibians in Australia. They have become so abundant, says DeVore, that they face more evolutionary pressure from each other, as they compete for resources, than from anything else in Australia.
Tadpole terror
Farmers first introduced about 100 cane toads (Rhinella marina) to Australia from their native range in South America in 1935 to control cane beetles (Dermolepida albohirtum), which were wreaking havoc on sugarcane plantations. The giant toads failed to knock down the beetle populations, but they succeeded in epically multiplying. Because of their highly poisonous skin, which is coated in bufotoxins, they had no natural predators and went on to invade large swaths of the northern and eastern parts of the country.
Although adult cane toads are fearsome — they grow up to 25 centimetres in length — it’s their tadpoles that are usually the cannibals. Multiple tadpoles together can gobble more than 99% of the hatchlings that emerge from the tens of thousands of eggs in a single clutch2.
DeVore and colleagues were curious to see whether the cannibalistic behaviour was common across all cane toads, or if it was due to how invasive the Australian ones are. So they collected cane toads from Australia and from French Guiana, and bred them to produce hatchlings and older tadpoles. The team then exposed a single tadpole to 10 hatchlings from its group — either from Australia or South America — hundreds of times and found that invasive Australian tadpoles were 2.6 times as likely to cannibalize hatchlings as native South American ones.
Researchers have long known that the Australian tadpoles are attracted to the hatchlings because of the scent of the younger animals’ toxic skin. “You’ll get this huge avalanche of thousands and thousands of tiny cane-toad tadpoles coming toward this chemical,” says Rick Shine, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, and a co-author of the study. DeVore, Shine and co-workers saw this play out in their experiments: the Australian tadpoles were nearly 30 times as likely to swim towards a trap containing hatchlings as an empty trap, and the South American tadpoles showed no preference for either.
Although the speed with which the toads evolved this behaviour is impressive, the team was even more surprised by how fast the animals evolved a defence to protect against it. The researchers found that when invasive Australian hatchlings shared a tank with caged, older tadpoles from the same group, the hatchlings were more likely to have a shorter developmental period than that of the South American hatchlings. Older tadpoles don’t tend to eat older tadpoles — so the toads might have evolved to speed up their hatchling phase, the researchers found. This would limit the amount of time they spend vulnerable to cannibalism, even if the adaptation eventually stunts their growth, says DeVore.
Roshan Vijendravarma, an evolutionary biologist at the Curie Institute in Paris, who has studied cannibalism in fruit flies, says the differences between the invasive and native toads’ behaviour probably have a genetic basis, given how extreme they are and how quickly they evolved over relatively few generations of toads.
Shine and his colleagues think this idea is worth exploring and are studying it now. Although there are still mysteries around the cane toads’ cannibalistic tendencies, one thing is for certain, says Shine: “The cane toads that are currently hopping across Australia are extraordinarily different animals from the ones that were first taken out of the native range.”
A North Queensland farmer fears the state government’s snap decision to turn off the tap to a major river tributary will damage both his crop and the Great Barrier Reef.
Tony Jeppesen said while a closure of the O’Connell River was expected, the move was made weeks earlier than in other years, blindsiding growers and leaving them unable to water newly planted crops.
The Bloomsbury-based farmer said this could put he and others in violation of laws requiring them to prevent environmental run-off.
“I’ve already contacted the Department of Environment and told them I’ll be in breach,” he said.
“I can’t do anything about it because of the conditions the local [department] office has placed on us.
“It could cost jobs, it’s going to cost the environment, it’s a stupid decision.”
A department spokesperson, however, said irrigators should have foreseen the ban and were given reasonable notice to stop taking water from the river and its tributaries in the Whitsundays.
Communication breakdown
Mr Jeppesen grows sugar cane and broadacre crops across four properties that use water from the O’Connell tributary and employs about 12 people.
“It takes months to plan our cropping programs; we try to get a couple of cover crops in, it’s great for our soil biology and soil structure, and in one week they’ve destroyed that,” he said.
“I’ve just planted 46 hectares of cover crops … finished Friday afternoon, [and now] we can’t actually water them, so they’ll die.”
The government spokesperson said irrigators were notified of limitations on August 6 by letter and notification on its website.
Mr Jeppesen said his letter did not arrive until August 18.
Mr Jeppesen says restrictions on irrigation have come earlier than ever before.(Supplied: Tony Jeppersen)
Under the restrictions, he is permitted to water three nights a week — Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
He finalised planting on Friday, fertilised and set up irrigation systems over the weekend with plans to water Monday evening as per restrictions, but received a call on Monday from his local Canegrowers branch informing him that all irrigation was now banned.
On Tuesday, Mr Jeppesen received a text from the department confirming the ban.
It was not the first time Mr Jeppesen had issues with not knowing when allocations had changed, and said the website was not a reliable way to get information to farmers.
“It’s like them putting in a stupid website somewhere that no-one can see and saying there’s now a 50-kilometre speed limit on the Bruce Highway and charging everyone the next day a big fine,” he said.
Between a rock and a hard place
The effort to protect the health of the O’Connell River system is not what frustrates Mr Jeppesen.
“We’re not saying we shouldn’t be on restrictions, we’re saying they have to be incorporated in a way that doesn’t do environmental damage to the system,” he said.
“They have to be incorporated in a way that works with landholders.
“[Now the crops are planted], there’s legislative requirements in the sugar industry we have to comply with, so I must water some products in so there’s less chance of [soil and fertiliser] moving.”
Mr Jeppesen said that in previous years when more warning was given, restrictions increased incrementally from nights only to five and then three nights a week, before a week’s warning was issued ahead of a total water ban.
Amanda Camm, the LNP member for the Whitsundays, said she had written to Water Minister Glenn Butcher requesting an urgent audit of the system.
“Information that the department makes decisions on should always be transparent,” she said.
“Growers pay for these allocations, they pay for water licensing; I think it’s upon the department to always be upfront and share information as soon as it comes to hand.”
Ms Camm also said she was concerned for the lose-lose position growers now faced.
“The challenge the state government has delivered to farmers is what decision do they make?
“Do they take water they’re not meant to take to make sure they comply with legislation around run-off, around reef regulations, or do they plough it into the ground also risking that they may not comply with legislation?”
