FORECASTING the gyrating Australian dollar's movements for the next few weeks, or months, is considered about as difficult as predicting the winner in November's Melbourne Cup, but most say it's on the way up again.
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That's not news exporters, particularly farmers, want to hear, but National Australia Bank's agribusiness markets manager, Rod Fraser, said a high dollar was an awkward reality agriculture had to get used to for the long term.
"We have to accept that while ever our minerals are going out the door and driving our economy at a rate of knots the pressure on our currency is going to be up,' Mr Fraser said.
He was comfortable with the idea of the Aussie finding a home around the US90-95c mark.
"A GFC Mark II (triggered by current European financial turmoil) could put the wobbles under it, but a lower dollar is hard to see in the long term."
However in the meantime, last fortnight's drop from April's peaks around US93c to US80c, then up again to US85c by Friday, was a "classic example" of opportunities that still existed for farmers regardless of the currency's underlying strength.
Mr Fraser said a window had briefly opened for growers to take advantage of higher wheat prices out to 2012 and 2014, enabled them to lock in on wheat swaps at more than $300 a tonne - well above the long term average wheat price at $200.
Forward cotton sales were also busy last week, he said.
While taking advantage of that sort of market opportunity wasn't possible unless growers were relatively confident about having some moisture to grow a crop in two years' time, plus access to professional forward marketing guidance, it was the sort of circuit breaker producers needed to look out for.
But National Farmers Federation's economics manager, Charlie McElhone, suspects the latest dollar dip may be a sign the Aussie has lost some of its staying power.
He said much of the upward pressure on the dollar in the past year had been driven by overseas speculation of further interest rate rises, but the Reserve Bank of Australia, had now declared interest rates were close to what it considered normal levels.
"The prospect of limited further rate rises has taken some of the speculation heat out of the exchange rate," Mr McElhone said.
