Sherry Woods is a marketing adviser for FarmLink Marketing Solutions in southern Manitoba who has looked at farms near Wagga, in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, Hillston, Euabalong West, Condobolin, Forbes, Young and Cootamundra in the space of a few days.

Mrs Woods comes from a farming and grain buying background and found a few vast differences between farming in her home country and the way things are done in Australia.

“It was really interesting for us because being from the industry back at home it’s nice to see how you farm here and the similarities and differences,” she said.

“Your farmers have so much more risk here than we do.

We’re insured ... where your farmers get nothing (if a crop fails) so there’s so much more risk than we have.

“We don’t have bulk storage in Canada – all of our grain is stored on-farm. As we sell our grain to grain companies, that’s when we deliver it. That’s the biggest difference for us.”

August 1 is the deadline for Canadian deregulation and while in Australia, Mrs Woods is looking into how growers have adapted. Wheat is grown “purely as a rotation crop” in the North American country, but that is likely to change in the near future.

“It’s huge for our farmers – we will still have a voluntary wheat board – but nobody knows how it’s going to work yet,” she said.