Farmers tip sugar cane industry comeback

TWEED'S $30 million sugar cane industry will make a roaring comeback in 2012, with the region's leading farmers predicting their highest-quality crop in almost a decade.

The past 12 months have been difficult for cane farmers across the Tweed, with constant soaking rain compounding flood damage to crops from the year before.

The rain and cold weather combined to stunt the growth of crops in 2011, with Tweed Canegrowers president Robert Quirk saying last year's harvest was limited to 312,000 tonnes.

Mr Quirk said the 2012 harvest, due to begin in June, would likely yield up to 500,000 tonnes.

"The current cane crops on the Tweed are about two months advanced on where we were this time last year," Mr Quirk said.

While the predicted size of the harvest is no doubt encouraging to farmers, it is the quality of the harvest that has some farmers excited.

Tweed Canegrowers vice-president David Bartlett, of Murwillumbah, was certainly optimistic about the next harvest.

Mr Bartlett said this year's crop was a big bounce back after the industry bottomed out in 2011.

"We have had a shocker in the past three or four years and last year was the straw that broke the camel's back because we had six months of drizzle," he said.

"Cane farming is different to other types of farming because you only plant 20 to 25 per cent of your farm which gets harvested every year and then the rest of your previous harvest regrows which we call returns.

"So to wipe out a bad year can take three or four harvests. But the big plant we have got this year is looking predominantly good."

source: goldcoast