Australian storms cause $100 million in crop damage
The storm, the third in three months, lashed Adelaide and the Mount Lofty Ranges from Tuesday, felling trees and damaging homes.
SA Power Networks say about 155,000 customers were affected by the storms and that power was restored to 139,000 of those customers by 3pm Thursday. That left about 16,000 homes without power.
It’s another setback for primary producers after hail shredded vineyards, stone fruit and citrus in the Riverland last month and October flooding crippled vegetable growers in the Adelaide Plains.
Primary Producers SA chairman Rob Kerin said the storm was the latest in a series of natural disasters that had ruined an “otherwise fantastic growing season”.
Farmers who had yet to bring in what was proving to be a bumper grain crop, could see prices fall between $50-80 a tonne due to a significant downgrade in quality.
“When you’ve got a year like this and you have a fantastic crop sitting out there and have a big rain like this one it’s pretty disheartening,” Mr Kerin said.
Grain Producers SA chief executive Darren Arney predicted the storm had impacted on 5 per cent of the state’s grain crop and would cost growers between $100-200 million.
“Where lots of the rain has fallen either farmers have finished or are half way there but there’s still 3 million tonnes of grain yet to come in,” Mr Arney said.
source: news.com.au
