Country Today - April 9th

April 9, 2026·23 min·1 clip

Travis Hare of OptiAg says if it rained 15-20mm today, Horsham's entire urea supply would be sold out in 15 minutes.

1. Country Today, hosted by Libby Price, examines cascading impacts of Australia's fuel and fertiliser crisis across horticulture, dairy, grain inputs, renewables, and beef on April 9th. 2. Paul Gazzola, chair of AusVeg Victoria and a Somerville vegetable grower, is the first guest, describing fuel surcharges rising from 16-17% to 50-60% and fertiliser price increases of 50-80% being flagged by suppliers. 3. The episode's thesis is that a fragile Iran-US ceasefire will not quickly ease farmers' input costs, and multiple sectors face urgent production decisions before relief arrives. 4. Gazzola says his operation supplies celery, broccoli, Asian vegetables, and lettuce nationally and that fresh-produce growers are already deciding not to harvest crops when net farm-gate returns don't cover labour and packaging. 5. He warns of potential supermarket shelf shortages if growers continue cutting plantings, and notes the sector plants and harvests 52 weeks a year, making forward planning under cost uncertainty especially damaging. 6. Travis Hare, from OptiAg in Horsham, confirms urea is available at around mid-May pickup at approximately $1,400 per tonne, compared to significantly lower pre-crisis levels, and sulfate of ammonia is on a May-June timeline. 7. Hare delivers the episode's most striking quantification: if 15-20mm of rain fell today, his entire remaining urea stock would be sold out in roughly 15 minutes, with Australia potentially running 500,000 to one million tonnes short nationally. 8. Tim Bale, president of East Aus Milk and a New South Wales dairy farmer, says his members have not received a milk price rise for over two years while input costs have doubled. 9. Bale says he personally plans to reduce his herd by about 50 head to lower fuel and fertiliser costs, and warns processors and retailers that farmers cannot wait for June contract negotiations. 10. He is asking for 10-15 cents per litre more to farmers and 30 cents more on the retail shelf, arguing milk is cheap compared to other beverages and consumers would support a visible farm-share increase. 11. Shane Sully, Mayor of Greater Shepparton Council, says the council only discovered in a Sunday announcement that a large portion of land east of Shepparton—the Dookie and Pine Lodge area—had been included in Victoria's Central North Renewable Energy Zone plan without prior local consultation. 12. Sully says neighbouring property owners have no right to be consulted when a solar farm is approved on an adjacent property, raising concerns about impacts on land values across some of Victoria's highest-producing agricultural land. 13. He notes that consultation has been extended and VicGrid is listening, but expresses frustration that the region was not in the original May draft plan. 14. Ripley Atkinson of StoneX reports March 2026 beef exports of 149,973 metric tonnes—the second highest monthly volume on record, beaten only by July 2025's figure by about 500 tonnes—and says first-quarter 2026 cumulative exports were also a record. 15. Despite record export volumes and strong global demand, domestic cattle prices fell sharply over the two weeks before recording because producer confidence collapsed under fuel, fertiliser, and drought pressure in central and northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. 16. Atkinson says the market is caught between strong fundamentals and emotional sell-off dynamics, with producers turning off cattle quickly in a way that amplifies price volatility. 17. The episode's tone is consistently urgent and producer-focused: Libby Price presses each guest on practical consequences rather than policy theory, and all speakers frame the crisis as immediate and personal. 18. Jade Egan is credited with the field interviews for Gazzola, Hare, Bale, and Atkinson; Price conducts the Sully interview directly. 19. Grain farmers, dairy producers, horticulture operators, and cattle producers in drought-affected regions of New South Wales and southern Queensland will find the most directly relevant content here. 20. Those seeking macroeconomic analysis, international trade policy depth, or content outside Australian agriculture will find this episode narrowly focused.

As heard by us

A measured rural briefing on costs, shortages, and market strain.

Country Today spends most of its time on a cluster of pressures that are already landing in rural life: the Iran-US ceasefire and what it may mean for input costs, horticulture worries about shortages, milk prices under strain in dairy, conflict around renewable energy in…

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When a fragile ceasefire, fertiliser pain, milk prices, and cattle volatility all hit together.

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