Plains Grain at Mallala is being built in time to receive grain and pulses from the upcoming harvest. Photo: Plains Grain

A BULK storage site at Mallala is on track to open for the upcoming South Australian harvest to provide growers with an up-country delivery point and at least two traders with an accumulation site 50 kilometres north of Port Adelaide.

Being built by Brad Griffiths and family, the site will operate as Plains Grain, with JK International and Quadra Commodities expressing initial interest in the site.

It will have storage for up to 12,000 tonnes of shedded pulses and 20,000t of grain in bunkers.

“That’s phase one, and we’ve got the scope to double or triple it,” Mr Griffiths said.

Plains Grain is being built on a 50-hectare block on the family’s property, and is expected to offer cash prices and warehousing agreements to delivering growers.

Mr Griffiths said the idea to develop it has come about to help the family diversify its income stream, and because of reduced delivery options for pulses at longstanding receival sites in the district.

“We’ve got a couple of big sheds at home… and we thought we could build something that would be useful for other people too,” Mr Griffiths said.

“We’re 40 minutes out of Port Adelaide, and we thought we could spend some money and give growers somewhere else to deliver to, and somewhere for the trade to accumulate.”

Mr Griffiths is a fourth-generation farmer at Mallala, a major hay-growing area which is well located to take advantage of increased competition in the South Australian grain market.

In 2016, Australian Grain Export built a container-packing plant at nearby Dublin, and at Port Adelaide, Cargill, which is now developing its own site, as well as JK Semaphore, provide competition to Glencore’s Viterra as the state’s biggest bulk handler by far.

ADM at Port Pirie and T-Ports on Eyre Peninsula have also entered the bulk export accumulation market in the past 12 months, and plans are afoot to develop a grain-handling and packing site at Kimba on the Upper EP.

Development of the Plains Grain site started in May, and the Griffiths family is hoping it will be operational by early November.

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