We had a very successful talk in In Mackay at the Canegrowers office in Mackay.
A lot of the questions and conversations were around the implications of Sucrogen who have been buying a lot of sugar mills which is having an impact on sugar prices. Farmers are a bit worried about the future. A lot of the sugar mills are up to 80 years old and it feels like times are changing.
Other issues have centred around the weather. There have also been lots of flooding which has been hard for harvesting. The erratic nature of the weather is becoming more clear.
I also met with a law firm in Mckays Law. Mark McGraw sits on the regional development council.
He was saying a lot of the cane farms have Develop Approvals on them. But a lot of them can’t go ahead because of political issues.
There also appears to be a significant resource shortage on its way. It seems the town will only have the capacity to house 10 – 17% of the workers required for the mines.
For investors and farmers alike, this has quite a lot of implications and needs to be watched carefully
