Finalising future cane supply agreements at the end of the 2016 cane crush had allowed Tully Sugar and its suppliers “to get on with the job”, general manager Barry Dun said.
“We understood the need to reach agreement and we did,” Mr Dun said.
“Despite all of the uncertainty last year we provided a mechanism for our growers to be able to secure future pricing in 2017 and a vast number of them did so.
“They got a lot of value out of that.
“We had to take a risk and create contractual arrangements to allow them to do that and then we went on and reached agreement with our growers last December.
“We delivered growers choice, we delivered a cane supply contract and certainty to our growers and we delivered 2017 pricing to our growers.”
While negotiations with QSL were challenging, Mr Dun said mill owner Chinese agribusiness giant COFCO recognised the importance of “good commercial arrangements” with growers.
“Our sugar mill is used for processing cane nothing else and we own slightly less than five per cent of the available cane,” Mr Dun said. “We 95 pc rely on growers.
“We understood the need to have a good commercial relationship with our growers.
“We were then able to turn our attention to do what is best for our local Tully industry which is working cooperatively with our growers and optimising the supply chain.”
The season ahead is verging on another record, with early crop estimates between 2.6 million and 2.9 million tonnes.
Last year, the mill crushed just over 2.9 million tonnes.
Mr Dun said the growing season had been a “nice balance” of sunshine and rain, although recent grey, soggy conditions was less than optimal.
He said the estimated yield was 94 tonnes per hectare, with the long term average about 86 tonnes per hectare.
“There is a bit over 30,000 hectares available for harvest,” Mr Dun said.
“At the moment I see a period of consolidation with our cane supply.
“We need to demonstrate to our growers and our owners that we have the capacity to process the cane that is grown at the moment and with the upgrades happening this year I am confident we will be able to do that.
“The crop looks strong again and this will present us with a challenge to process it but we are up for that.”