Sometimes a small cropping industry seems to be able to move faster and more flexibly than larger ones.

Cotton is an excellent example of that, in the way it has reacted quickly to solve emerging problems, such as environmental concerns about its chemical use.

Less well known is the peanut industry, which has the advantage of one large, central organisation, the Peanut Company of Australia (PCA).

Besides acting as a general watchdog for the Australian peanut industry, PCA handles and markets the great bulk of the national crop as well as provideing seed, agronomic advice and a contract harvesting service.

It liaises with the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) supported Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (QDPI&F) breeding program on the release of more productive, higher quality peanut varieties.

In recent years PCA has built a reputation of international leadership in the production of quality peanuts; it's had to, because - according to its chief executive Bob Hansen - guaranteeing quality is the only way the Australian industry is going to survive.

Mr Hansen told last week's Grains Research Update at Atherton a range of factors - increasing peanut production in China, the United States and Brazil, the strength of the Australian dollar, improved efficiency of production and the Free Trade Agreement with the US - had brought the Australian industry under unprecedented financial pressure.

As the industry leader, PCA had replied with a range of measures of its own designed to ease pressure on the industry - reducing seed cost per hectare, smoothing the crop delivery process, identifying and releasing better peanut cultivars and quality differentiation in the marketplace.

Strategies to reduce the cost of seed by as much as 50 per cent included reducing its size - so that a tonne of seed could plant 30 per cent more hectares - and improving its vigour, a longer term project possibly taking three to five years to implement.

Mr Hansen told the Update, organised by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) at the request of local growers, PCA had also been working to make it easier for growers to deliver their peanuts in a number of ways, including expanding drying capacity and subsidising its cost.


And PCA would continue its liaison with QDPI&F on the release of new peanut varieties.

Some new cultivars could improve yields by close to 30 per cent. All PCA runner type varieties would be Hi Oleic this year, and all of its Virginia types in 2006.

"All of these combine to help us maintain a price to growers higher than world parity, which in February 2005 was about $A560 for Farmers Stock," Mr Hansen said.

The Crop Doctor, Peter Reading, is managing director of the Grains Research and Development Corporation, Canberra