THE ICONIC AWB wheat pool will be relegated to history with the news the company does not plan to offer harvest pool products this year.
AWB was formerly the manager of the single desk, the orderly wheat marketing system that meant all wheat exports were administered by the company via its national pool.
However, following deregulation the wheat marketing environment altered drastically, with an increasing focus on selling for cash and a number of competitors in the pool space.
The end of the AWB harvest pool, the direct descendant of the national pool that once accounted for all Australian wheat exports eventually came with little more than a whimper.
Last year was an especially tough season for pools, with near record prices available at harvest on the east coast and very little grain committed to pools, with their potential exposure to falling prices post-harvest.
An AWB spokesman said the company would continue to run the pool it had already opened for the season, the 2019 Season Starter, it would not operate its traditional harvest pools.
He said Season Starter customers would not be impacted by the decision not to open other pools.
"Our customers are increasingly preferring to market their grain through cash contracts, as such, we've seen demand for pool products decline in recent years," the spokesman said.
"We will continue to focus on offering competitive cash prices and storage and handling services for our grower customers which have been well supported due to the strong cash price environment."
Long-time champion of the orderly wheat marketing system and Rankins Springs farmer Jock Munro said he was unsurprised by the decision.
"Pools in a deregulated market were a charade in the first place, the national pool's strength was in its volume," Mr Munro said.
"Now AWB are just another merchant out there, no different to anyone else."
"We saw pools fail last year with the high cash price and there are other pool operators that are able to react to the market a lot quicker than AWB so it is no surprise whatsoever they are deciding to pull out of that space."
Former Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) grains group president Ian Hastings was heavily involved in agri-politics at the time of the deregulation of the wheat market.
He said the AWB pool of recent years bore little resemblance to the pools under the single desk and said grain marketing had changed significantly.
"It is little surprise they are no longer offering pools, the market has changed significantly, people are more comfortably marketing their own grain post-harvest rather than putting it into a pool, so the tonnage being dedicated to pools is less."
However, while Mr Hastings said the industry had adapted to deregulation, with farmers able to identify opportunities for better prices, some aspects of the single desk appealed.
"Certainly with the run of grain trader insolvencies we've seen there are some people who remember fondly when all they had to do was grow the grain and deliver it to the local silo, safe in the knowledge they'd be paid."
"I think people would put up with a few dollars a tonne less for guaranteed payment today."
AWB is owned by multi-national grains industry giant Cargill.