One of the thousands of deliveries made to CBH sites from the 2023-24 WA harvest. Photo: CBH Group

WESTERN Australia’s CBH Group has officially marked the end of the state’s 2023-24 harvest by announcing total grain deliveries of 12.5 million tonnes (Mt) into its network.

While harvest officially started on September 27, the same date as the previous year, in the Geraldton Zone, the 2023-24 harvest was smaller and finished earlier than last year’s record crop.

CBH received the 12.5Mt across 104 sites in its network, with 407,000t the biggest day of receivals, 33 percent below the biggest day for 2022-23 of 603,000t.

Three daily site receival records were set at Chillinup, Pingrup and Gairdner and no new site total receival records were reached.

In comparison to the 2022-23 harvest, the co-operative registered 53 sites that set daily tonnage records across the network, and 45 site total receival records.

Chief operations officer Mick Daw said the 2023-24 harvest was a reminder of the highs and lows of agriculture.

“Early on in the year, it was clear for many growers that 2023 would not be a repeat of the previous two bumper harvests,” Mr Daw said.

“As conditions worsened and estimates came in during June and July, we started making plans to accommodate seasonal conditions in our services this harvest.

“We anticipated this year’s crop to yield higher screenings and higher protein for many growers.

“To address this, CBH introduced additional utility grades, changed quality optimisation limits and rules, and made high-moisture grading system changes, to create more opportunities for growers to capture the value of their grain.

Zone total receivals were down across the board, with the Albany Zone taking the largest amount of 3.2Mt across the network.

Table 1: Total grain receivals in million tonnes by zone into the CBH network in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 harvests.

Source: CBH Group