Harvest starts as prices plunge and farmers cheer a falling dollar Tony Castro and his father Livio Castro are cane farmers in Bundaberg who have seen the industry change over many years. Livio came to Australia from Italy as a migrant worker and was made to work for the government at farms. He soon found his own piece of Australian farming. THE Queensland sugarcane crush has started for another year and is expected to earn Australian farmers up to $2 billion. But already cane growers are looking down the barrel of losses estimated to be more than $200 million during the next seven years in Queensland because of State Government power hikes. The devastating floods around Bundaberg wiped out the young cane on many farms and has cost about one million tonnes to the revised and reduced harvest estimate, but farmers have proved resilient and are cheering a falling Australian dollar. The industry has had two pretty good seasons which have finally synched with reasonable prices, but it appears to be coming to a crashing end with the State Government imposing huge electricity and water price burdens on farmers and world prices starting to plummet. The price of sugar is now down to about half the price it was in 2011 and it is making some farmers question whether it is worthwhile. About 2500 farmers have left the industry in the past 15 years, although the number seems to have plateaued at 4000. Bundaberg farmer Mark Pressler said his electricity costs had spiked 50 per cent in four years with a price increase this year of 10 per cent and another huge cost increase is looking unavoidable next year. The electricity is used to run pumps for irrigation and the price hikes were likely to force some farmers into either not irrigating and getting lower yields or getting out of the industry. "If the State Government wants to build the economy on the four pillars they have to keep us here to do that," Mr Pressler said. The estimated losses from the power price hike are between $7500 and $30,000. He said the dire state of the industry meant young farmers were rare now with the average age for sugarcane flamers close to 60 and the option of switching to other crops was not viable. Even though Bundaberg was also a big vegetable growing region, Mr Pressler said there was little profit in it to attract farmers to switch over. However, macadamias are slowly replacing cane farms in the Bundaberg region. Sugar mills in the Burdekin region in north Queensland were the first to start crushing last week, however the full effect of yellow canopy syndrome on this season's harvest will take months to be properly evaluated. Canegrowers chairman Paul Schembri said growers were still positive about this year's crush despite the dark clouds of increased costs. "Fair electricity and water pricing is crucial to the efficiency and profitability of our industry - an industry that's very significant to the State's economy and social fabric," Mr Schembri said. Price are expected to stay low for sugar until at least next year because of a glut created by the world's biggest producer, Brazil. And as farmers slowly go broke in southern Queensland, the State Government is pushing a strategy to develop sugarcane in gulf. The Government is pushing for the Gulf area to become an irrigated food bowl while their federal coalition counterparts have floated the idea of damming northern rivers, but opening the region comes with a handful of problems that can't be overcome easily.