Plant Health online hub
Plant Health Australia (PHA), the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Agriculture Victoria, the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, and Animal Health Australia, have partnered to create the National Biosecurity Training Hub - Australia's first one-stop shop for biosecurity training.
The hub is a response to demand for more training resources to support biosecurity preparedness and response activities and ensure that the necessary skills and knowledge are in place to respond to and manage biosecurity incidents.
"Pressure on Australia's biosecurity system requires an increased need for governments and industry to work together to ensure we can meet the rising demand for expertise and knowledge," said Susanna Driessen, PHA's general manager, emergency response.
"A collaborative approach necessitates the need for accessible online training resources to ensure we have the capacity and the capability to respond effectively."
The National Biosecurity Training Hub (the Hub) offers a central location with a database of biosecurity training resources to help reduce the duplication of effort and costs associated with developing and delivering biosecurity training.
China buys up Aussie barley
Chinese authorities continue to hoover up Australian barley since Australia's return to the Chinese market after Beijing lifted its heavy tariffs in August this year.
The barley trade between the two countries was negligible for close to three years while the tariffs were in place but has roared back into life with a vengeance with reports of 314,000 tonnes of Aussie barley heading to China in October alone.
With new crop product coming onboard now there is a lot of business written up for the traditional front half export window as well.
Australia is not the only source for barley for China, which is also buying from Russia and Kazakhstan to ensure a diverse range of suppliers of the grain.
GrainCorp hits 5m tonnes
Bulk handler GrainCorp has cracked the five million tonne mark for grain receivals this harvest.
In spite of rain-induced interruptions, followed by cool conditions that further delayed the restart of harvest, the east coast grain storage giant received over 300,000 tonnes for the week, primarily in its southern zones, taking total receivals to 5.098m tonnes.
The focus is now on receiving as much grain as possible prior to forecast weekend rainfall likely to lead to further delays and potential quality issues with the crop.
GrainCorp officials also noted a big out-turn program, with over 180,000 tonnes outloaded last week and sent to domestic and international customers.
Big Chinese wheat buy
Australian farmers can look forward to solid Chinese demand for their high quality wheat lines, following Reuters reports the Asian giant has made a monster purchase of US wheat, indicating strong demand for supplies.
Reuters this week said China had bought 440,000 tonnes of American wheat, in one of its biggest purchases from the US since the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is being speculated that China is looking for good quality lines of wheat to help supplement its own crop, which suffered quality damage due to rain at harvest, although this has not been confirmed.
Quality in early harvested Aussie crop is good, but there is concern about harvest rain in the south.