Australia is set to reap a record cotton crop in 2011 despite crop losses caused by severe flooding in north-eastern Australian state of Queensland, a top cotton trading firm said on Thursday. About 7,500 hectares of crop had been destroyed in Queensland state but that represented little more than 1 percent of 665,000 hectares planted across Australia, Industry body Cotton Australia said.
"I still think we are still looking for a record crop for Australia but also think the losses will be more than the 7,500 hectares that is being talked about," said Gordon Cherry, Chief Executive of US owned trading firm Dunavant Enterprises in Australia.
Cherry said overall losses would not be significant as farmers had planted around three times the area in cotton than the previous year as spring rain had encouraged sowing dryland crops and also made more water available for irrigated crops.
High prices also attracted more planting with the fibre rallying to levels not seen since the US Civil War in the 19th century, driven by renewed demand from China. On Wednesday US cotton futures eased in thin trade with the March contract finishing at $1.4043 per lb after hitting a year high of $1.5912 on December 21.
Cherry said before floods hit cotton growing areas in Australia, there had been forecasts of a crop exceeding four million bales. (4.4 bales equals 1 tonne). "I still think we will exceed the previous largest crop. I don't have any problem with that even though we have lost a reasonable amount of cotton over the past week," he said.
Australia's largest cotton crop to date was 3.52 million bales in 2001. "I think we would have been over four million with this crop before this last flood event but I think we will be under four now," said Cherry. He said it was too early to assess actual crop losses as it depended on how quickly the water drained from crop land and allowed plants to recover.
"We really don't know at this stage but there is the possibility of fairly significant losses given the volume of water that's hanging around," said Cherry. Cotton Australia spokesman David Bone said the area around Theodore, about 565 kms north-west of the state capital of Brisbane, was of most concern as most of the 10,000 hectares planted had been washed away.