It is predicting an average wheat price of $359/tonne port for 2008-09.

This figure is down $81/t on the final 2007-08 figures, but remains clearly the highest pre-year estimate ever.

While ABARE is flagging an easing of the record prices that have evolved in the past three weeks, during which the Chicago Board of Trade futures topped US1250c/bus in February, the outlook is still bullish.

The outlook is rosy for Australian wheat producers due to a combination of:

• low world stocks;

• increased consumption for both food and fuel; and

• the influx of investor money, looking to find a safe haven in the wake of the economic slowdown in the US.

Growers are urged to steel themselves for a mid-year slump, once the risk of northern hemisphere crop failure eases.

But low world stocks mean that even allowing for a 3pc increase in worldwide production, prices will remain at historically high levels.

Predictably, the ABARE crystal ball suggests Australian farmers will attempt to cash in on the boom – with plantings set to rise by over a million hectares.

Early season optimism in Queensland and northern NSW has led ABARE to raise forecast national yields some 80pc, year on year, to 1.93t/ha.

ABARE’s production figures have almost doubled from 2007/08 to a shade under 26 million tonnes.

SOURCE: Extract from ABARE Outlook report, to be published in Rural Press agricultural weeklies, March 6