Harvest good for farmers, good for communities

It's truly no understatement to say that it's the perfect antidote to what has been such an incredibly challenging year.

For those in the bigger towns, what's happening out on the cropping farms might not be readily apparent.

But when those farmers have garnered returns from their investment and hard toil, the impact will begin to be felt.

Albury-Wodonga isn't a one-industry place, of course, with a diversity stretching from technological innovators to the tertiary and Defence sectors and beyond.

But even in such a multi-faceted economy, agriculture remains the big one.

And when our croppers and others in the industry are doing well, you can expect some of that return will be spent in our towns and cities.

What is more significant though is for the farmers themselves.

To have such a strong season on the back of a drought finally broken gives a lot of heart.

Most importantly, income flows in but on top of that is how that allows farmers to plan ahead with some confidence.

In the here and now though there's still a lot of work still to be completed.

Current estimates are that growers are probably between 60 and 70 per cent through the harvest, which has been only slightly delayed by very recent cooler, wet conditions.

The statistics certainly tell a tremendous story.

At least 800,000 tonnes of grain has already been harvested from a wide region stemming from Boree Creek to Dookie, near Shepparton.

While the La Nina event is still on the horizon in the new year, farmers are confident the longer-than-usual harvest will get done in time.

And that is great news indeed.

As farmer Tom Dowling says: "It's obviously as a good a year as we've had for a while."

All we need now is for 2021 to do the same.