THE HALCYON days of Australian agriculture often have associations with the livestock industry, whether it be the beef barons of northern and outback Australia or the wool tycoons profiting from the legendary pound a pound days of the 1950s.
However, the grains sector is currently in the middle of a boom of its own.
To little fanfare the grains industry chalked up an impressive result this year with Australian Bureau of Agriculture Resource Economics and Sciences data showing total value of the grains industry sitting at more than $28 billion, with wheat earnings alone over $15 billion.
This dwarfs the comparative earnings of beef, $14 billion and wool $3.5 billion.
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The grains industry has been helped by two consecutive record breaking seasons in terms of production, with this year's crop of 67 million tonnes coming on the back of a 62m tonne year in 2021-22 as the La Nina weather events pumped good moisture into much of the nation's cropping belt.
However, grains industry figures say that while the favourable weather conditions have played a role there is reason for optimism that there can be a long-term upward trend in terms of industry earnings.
"We're not going to have the years we've had the past three every single time," said Ron Storey, a lifetime grains industry participant and former Pulse Australia chairman.
"However, we are seeing an upward trend in the value of the crop even allowing for the volatility of our seasons."
Mr Storey said the first phase of the growth in the grains industry was during the 1990s when there was a step-up in plantings, in particular in high yield high rainfall zones as farmers in traditional livestock regions recognised the potential of cropping.
This was backed up by data from Grain Producers Australia that found that total crop revenue back in the late 1980s was just $4 billion.
More recently, however, Mr Storey said productivity gains, rather than area expansion, had been the driver of growth.
"We're really making some big gains and a lot of that has been driven by technology, whether it be the breeding of better varieties or in-paddock agronomic advances such as GPS or the use of variable rate input systems."
Chairman of industry good organisation Terry Enright agreed that technology had been a key driver of productivity gains.
"You take a look at something like water use efficiency, which is a really good measure of how we are tracking, not just in the good years but in the bad as well and we're just obliterating the previous benchmarks," he said.
Mr Storey said the country was doing more to level the peaks and troughs in terms of seasonal variability.
"The headlines will be on these big years with 35 million tonnes of wheat or more, but equally important is what we are doing in the dry seasons.
"It used to be that a poor year for wheat would be 10 million tonnes, but now that figure is pushing up towards 15, even 20m tonnes, which is really important."
Mr Storey said the grains sector had a natural advantage in the ag space in terms of taking up modern agricultural technology.
"Grain has been a mechanically minded sector since the advent of the stump-jump plough and growers naturally trend to upgrade their machinery so the switch over to things like auto-steer and GPS has been well taken-up."
Mr Enright said it was not just mechanical advances helping grain growers.
"Controlled traffic has been great, but agronomic advances, such as the confidence in planting earlier have also helped."
Colin Bettles, Grain Producers Australia chief executive said last year's tallies of 40 million tonnes of wheat, 8.3m tonnes of canola and 14.1m tonnes of barley highlighted the industry was in good shape.
"The strong returns over the past three years have seen grains now become the largest contributor to Australia's agricultural sector," he said.
"GPA is extremely proud of our growers in helping to achieve these record returns, which also build greater resilience and strength for rural communities and the national economy."
Mr Storey highlighted how the diversification of the industry was benefiting the bottom line.
"Crops like canola and lentils have been real success stories over the past decade and looking at canola and China's enormous demand for soybeans, which spins over into the canola complex, the outlook is very bright."
"Demand for pulses is also growing around the world so there are opportunities with these high value crops."
Looking ahead, the industry leaders felt the future was bright for grain.
"There are probably not as significant a regulatory or sustainability issues in comparison to the other ag sectors," Mr Storey said.
"The industry is aware customers will have greater sustainability needs and is working towards that," Mr Enright said.
He said the cash flowing into the industry showed people were in the industry for the long-term.
"You see the investment and it's clear people are in it for the long haul."
Mr Enright said there were good opportunities for growth on Australia's doorstep through south-east Asia.
"For those suited to growing feed varieties, places like Vietnam and the Philippines are really ramping up their chicken and pork production, while we also see some really big opportunities in specialty wheat like cake and biscuit wheat or noodle wheat."