BSES Limited-led analysis shows Bundaberg district sugarcane growers using new farming systems rather than a traditional farming methods have reduced their input costs significantly and have gained extra income from harvesting soybeans.
Dr Peter Allsopp, BSES QCrops manager, said the project traced a hypothetical but typical farm through three time periods: 1960-1970 (traditional farming system), 1970-1980 (past farming system) and 2000-present (new or improved farming system).
"The farming system has changed dramatically over time due to gains made through research, development and extension," Dr Allsopp said.
"The profitability and sustainability of the hypothetical farm shows that if it had continued to be managed the way their predecessors farmed, the grower would currently be losing $71,000 per year.
"Our model suggests the improved farming system is delivering a profit of $33,000 per year – $104,000 more than if the traditional approach was still being used."
Dr Allsopp says the farming system has changed markedly over the past 40 to 50 years.
"The improved farming system, coupled with new varieties, is enabling viable and sustainable sugarcane farming businesses, but this would not have been the case if the traditional approach was still being used," he said.
More than 98pc of varieties currently grown in Australia were developed by BSES Limited under the QCanes breeding program.
Other gains include the 'new farming system' which includes breaking the sugarcane monoculture with fallow legume cropping, controlled in-field trafficking and the adoption of minimum tillage principles.
The analysis uses the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (QDPI&F) breakthrough Farm Economic Analysis Tool (FEAT), which compares the profitability of different farming systems.
Dr Allsopp says grower viability helps to support mill profitability through a continuing cane supply and translates to further profitability down the value chain.
"Without such on-going assessment, development, promotion and adoption of improved systems and practices, growers would not have access to technologies that have enabled their farming enterprises to remain viable," he said.
He says more gains can be made with further adoption of best practice management on-farm to secure more economic benefits of new sugarcane varieties.
"We encourage growers to embrace the principles of best practice management that are now accepted as fundamental to further improvements in sugarcane productivity and profitability and to maintenance of the resource base."
Overlying this is the complex interaction of fluctuating sugar prices and input costs.
Dr Allsopp says growers’ responses to fluctuations in terms of inputs applied are likely to have effects in years subsequent to these management decisions.
Further economic analysis is needed to understand how these effects drive long-term farm profitability, he said.
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