Australia to lose a quarter of crop to drought, frost

[wineo]

Australia to lose a quarter of crop to drought, frost
Chris Snow

Nationwide drought and severe frosts could reduce Australia's grape crop by a quarter and cause hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

Drought is expected to reduce the crop by at least 15% and frosts – in the southeast - by at least 10%.

'We could be looking at 500,000 tonnes less than what we now regard as the benchmark crop of two million tonnes,' Wine Grape Growers Australia chief executive Mark McKenzie said.

With further frosts forecast in the next two weeks and further water restrictions expected to be announced later this week the losses could increase.

A 500,000 tonne loss would mean 375m litres less wine production than expected. This is about 40% of the estimated current surplus of 900m litres.

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