• Most Australian agricultural markets started the year in broadly stable territory, with the lower Australian dollar supporting local prices. The NAB Rural Commodities Index was up 0.8% in AUD terms in January and our forecasts point to Australian agricultural prices trending generally higher in AUD terms in 2016, despite challenging international conditions.

• January brought rain to many areas which saw a dry 2015. Rainfall was generally above average in southern Australia, although parts of western Queensland and much of the top end saw below average falls. The Bureau of Meteorology’s latest three month outlook points to good autumn rainfall across most of the continent but more challenging conditions in the top end.

• 2016 got off to a bad start in global equity and commodity markets but despite these heightened global risks, our outlook for the Australian economy is essentially unchanged. We continue to anticipate further recovery across the non-mining economy.  We see the AUD falling as low as USD 0.66 in Q2 2016.

For more details, please refer to the attached document.

•  Rural Commodities Wrap – Feb 2016 (PDF, IMB)