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Within the Sugar Act cane quality is also a consideration and must be part of a cane supply agreement with a mill. Quality programs provide some assurance of standards to meet customer expectations. There is also a mechanism in the Act that allows payment or penalties in relation to quality criteria. In some instances mills have implemented quality based schemes and provides bonuses for cane which reaches a certain standard. Beyond negotiating arrangements for cane supply, processing and payment, the Sugar Act also provides a mechanism for dispute resolution and mediation for establishing a cane supply agreement. The act is not prescriptive in that it requires farmers and millers to examine issues while allowing them to decide on how to deal with them. 5.3 Ownership within the Supply Chain 5.3.1 Growing Small scale owner operated farming enterprises account for the majority of sugarcane grown in Australia. Average farm size in the sugar industry is approximately 70 ha with farms ranging from 20 to 2000 ha. The growing sector of the industry comprises over 4000 owner operated cane growing enterprises. A large percentage of these farming operations produce less than 5,000 tonnes of sugarcane per year (~ 50 Ha). In Queensland these farming operations account for 55% of cane produced and in NSW 75%. Regional variations in farm sizes occur, for example, larger farming enterprises are encountered in the Burdekin. The Sugar Industry Oversight Group (2006) suggested that economies of scale through increasing the operating size of farming enterprises would lead to long term improvements in the cost of production within the industry. Economies of scale could be generated through growth or acquisition although managed scale options provides a less structured approach. Managed scale allows farmers to have a cost profile consistent with a larger enterprise without requiring a change in ownership. This can be achieved by growers acting in concert through cooperation, unincorporated and incorporated joint ventures, share farming arrangements, joint management agreements, farming consortia, or developing a structure that allows farmers to act economically as a larger enterprise, therefore reducing the unit cost of production for it members. Particular examples of this include the harvesting cooperatives that operate in NSW. In some cases harvesting cooperatives have expanded their charter to other aspects of farming including planting. 5.3.2 Harvesting In recent years the number of harvesting enterprises has declined to 1,000 operators. Productivity rates vary from 13,000 tonnes per harvester to greater than 150,000 tonnes. This is dependent on a number of factors including the topography, historical structure of harvest groups, equipment type and age. Prices per tonne harvested are charged to growers based on an average of harvest group costs. Some variation in these arrangements may occur were there are large haulage distances to the delivery point of the mill transport system. The capacity of a sugarcane harvester is 16 times the size of an average farm (Hildebrand, 2002) which requires frequent cleaning and movement of equipment to harvest a proportion from each farm in multiple passes or rounds before harvesting is complete. Over time a number of harvest and transport logistical studies have been undertaken to rationalise equipment and to maximise efficiencies. Strategies include the consolidation of land holdings to reduce inefficiencies through continual moving (around grower equity issues). In essence the concept is based on rationalising the harvested area so that harvesters can operate at full capacity. Full capacity for a single machine is regarded to be 100,000 tonnes of sugarcane per year. 129
Hildebrand (2002) estimated that there were approximately 1,200 harvesters in Queensland with a requirement for less than half, although some areas do have high productivity harvesting arrangements. Generally high cost, difficult to cut farms are cross subsidised within a harvesting group by an easier to cut low cost neighbouring property. Many harvesting contractors operate with little documentation; while machinery has a 4-5 year lifetime with a replacement cost greater than one million dollars (includes harvester and haul out equipment) Some rationalisation of harvesting structures and operations has occurred and are likely to continue within the industry. Although harvesting represents a significant cost and importance to the sugar industry, harvesting contractors are not normally included in industry negotiations between farmer and miller. A large proportion of the harvesting sector however is administered by farmers. Harvesting is generally carried out during daylight hours despite mills operating for 24 hours a day (between June and November). In recent years the move towards double shift harvesting (i.e. operate outside of daylight hours) has become more common to increase machine throughput and to cover high machinery replacement costs. In some areas harvesters also continuously harvest 24 hours a day. Other recent changes have included the consolidation of harvesting groups so that harvesters operate on a large area i.e. improve utilisation of equipment. Rostering and scheduling creates inefficiencies for transport and machine utilisation. This results in sub-optimal utilisation of harvesters, ancillary equipment, delivery infrastructure (sidings), rolling stock and locomotives (Sugar Industry Oversight Group, 2006). Given harvesters are not operating over the same 24 hour period as the mill, cane bins are used as a buffer / temporary storage which can lead to protracted cut to crush delays and detrimental effects on sugar quality (and cost to the value chain). A large driver of green cane harvesting was the flexibility of harvesting in excessively wet conditions. In the early adoption of green cane harvesting the significant increase in biomass was somewhat of a barrier as machines could only cut 30-50% of their burnt cane capacity. Within the industry today, the majority of farmers have adopted green cane harvesting. Generally across the sugar industry harvester operators are paid on an agreed rate per tonne of cane (including extraneous matter and soil) across a harvesting group. This system encourages harvester operators to harvest at high pour rates and machine settings which maximise the amount of cane cut per hour. This behaviour results in increased cane losses, EM levels and soil which impacts on the amount of cane received (i.e. tonnes paid), recoverable sugar (i.e. CCS) obtained and additional costs within the value chain (i.e. increased milling costs). In addition, this payment system doesn’t encourage improvements to farm layout (i.e. row length and haul distance) within a harvesting group. Farm layout is particularly sensitive to the actual cost of harvesting. Within the sugar industry there is scope to explore more effective harvest payment systems which are considerate of the whole supply chain (Figure 5.1). This can be achieved by linking grower, harvester and miller interests and using economic incentives to drive harvester performance and implement Harvest Best Practice, HBP (Jones, 2004). At a regional level the Sugar Industry Oversight Group (2006) identified harvesting as the segment within the value chain with the greatest productivity gains. 130
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Sustainable Biomass Supply Chain fo
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Foreword This report provides an as
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include business development (new p
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Acknowledgments The authors would l
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4.1 Product Options and Supply Chai
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Table 4.2 Assessment of current val
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Figure 3.4 Tracked rigid self-prope
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Executive Summary What the report i
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• Biomass production potential of
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• As the Industry expands, the mo
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Harvesting, transport and storage s
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Biomass processing, supply chain pl
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Key barriers to biomass industries
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Crop-Biomass Production Production
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Figure 1.1 The cropping and pasture
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Table 1.1 Mallee species used for p
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1.1.4 Growth Cycle Mallee System Ma
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northern New South Wales (where it
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Almost 80% of the industry now cuts
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Bark has relatively high ash but as
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Carbon sinks Planting of mallees to
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Table 1.5(a) State Land area devote
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out the fluctuations in farm income
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Mallee system Most of the mallee bi
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inconclusive result may have been d
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For a sustainable woody crop indust
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changed significantly since they we
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Figure 2.2 Biosystems Engineering p
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Whole-of-crop harvesting represents
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During the last decade the harvesti
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single row, as this would improve t
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2.2.2.2 Weight Sugar System The Aus
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Table 2.1 Harvester Comparison Tabl
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The quality of cut may be less impo
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ate than a 170 tonne/ha crop of sta
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Dry Leaf 6.1 - 3.5 17.0 58.9 53.2 T
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Bulk density will be a key consider
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Table 2.4 EM levels in cane supply
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L/T L/T 60 0.97 0.71 80 0.92 0.66 1
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Total 7.5-26 16.5 Mallee System The
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• waiting for mill delivery of em
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perhaps at 10 - 20 km intervals. Th
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transport arrangements, harvest gro
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contractors and growers, and the fa
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experience of the sugar industry wi
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Table 2.11 Alternative harvest paym
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onto the harvester. BR+F still send
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Repairs and maintenance 2.10 Capita
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Figure 2.14 and Table 2.14 describe
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Sichter et al. (2005)), harvest and
Page 101 and 102: Transport efficiencies may be possi
Page 103 and 104: 3. Transport and Storage Systems Tr
Page 105 and 106: same time, the potential problems o
Page 107 and 108: Figure 3.3 Articulated self-propell
Page 109 and 110: • The harvester will not have any
Page 111 and 112: Figure 3.7 Gross mass compared with
Page 113 and 114: external factors dramatically impac
Page 115 and 116: Figure 3.11 The effect of haulout t
Page 117 and 118: 3.3 Road Transport 3.3.1 Configurat
Page 119 and 120: Figure 3.15 shows an example of the
Page 121 and 122: Road distance one way < 20 km 70 km
Page 123 and 124: Haul distance is largely outside th
Page 125 and 126: 3.6 Recommendations The nature of t
Page 127 and 128: • The strategy offered lower tota
Page 129 and 130: sugarcane billets are such that wit
Page 131 and 132: • Transfer the whole tree product
Page 133 and 134: Figure 4.5(b) Energy balance of con
Page 135 and 136: 2010). Table 4.2 presents a summary
Page 137 and 138: 4.4.2 Activated charcoal Activated
Page 139 and 140: Nett Product Value ($/t) $475.00 $
Page 141 and 142: Table 4.9 presents an estimation of
Page 143 and 144: • Oil from leaf @ $2/kg • Synth
Page 145 and 146: • The mallee oil would be extract
Page 147 and 148: 5. Industry and Business Structures
Page 149 and 150: is conducted into tariff levels on
Page 151: Bx is % brix in first expressed jui
Page 155 and 156: also has a flow on effect to the sp
Page 157 and 158: Sugar Industry Illustrative Example
Page 159 and 160: with super size multi-lift bins ove
Page 161 and 162: farmer vs. harvester) is the next l
Page 163 and 164: 6. Supply Chain Planning and Manage
Page 165 and 166: Figure 6.1 Building blocks of the s
Page 167 and 168: weighed against the costs of operat
Page 169 and 170: • There is close contact between
Page 171 and 172: 6.4 Planning, Management Tools and
Page 173 and 174: • Harvest and transport logistics
Page 175 and 176: interface. The system allows users
Page 177 and 178: Case Study 6.2 - Model Application
Page 179 and 180: Relationships between sectors and p
Page 181 and 182: 7. Supply Chain Modelling and Econo
Page 183 and 184: It was assumed that there was a fif
Page 185 and 186: Table 7.2 Scenario two capital equi
Page 187 and 188: Table 7.4 Fuel burn rates harvester
Page 189 and 190: Figure 7.5 Effect of capital equipm
Page 191 and 192: Figure 7.7 Effect of annual tonnes
Page 193 and 194: 30 1.8 7.0 12.3 17.5 50 1.1 4.3 7.6
Page 195 and 196: 8. Conclusions and Recommendations
Page 197 and 198: Biomass bulk density has a large im
Page 199 and 200: Vehicles used for infield haulout w
Page 201 and 202: This can be compared with harvest a
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While diversification can add value
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Appendix 1: Comparative Assessment
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and transport conditions. Billet le
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that cane production is the most pr
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on sugar only, other proceeds (mola
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References Agnew, J 2002. A Partici
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Enecon 2001. Integrated Tree Proces
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Keating, BA, Antony, G, Brennan, LE
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Ridge, DR and Linedale, AL, 1997. T
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Willcox, T, Hussey, B, Chapple, D a
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