Prospects are generally favourable for the 1996 winter wheat crop. Ideal conditions and strong international prices have favoured planting throughout most of the major growing areas. In particular, conditions have improved greatly this year in Queensland where torrential rainfall in early May favoured plantings and a recovery in output from the drought-reduced harvests in the past five years is in prospect, even if future rainfall is below average. However, by contrast, in Western Australia, where planting is normally completed by mid-May, many areas were still waiting for essential planting rains in early June. Latest official forecasts put the 1996 aggregate winter wheat area at about 11 million hectares, up some 11 percent from the previous year. However, if good rainfall doesn�t arrive soon in Western Australia the final area could be somewhat less than earlier expected. Nevertheless, assuming weather conditions improve for planting in Western parts, and remains normal for the remainder of the season, even if yields slip back from the above-average levels obtained in 1995, output is expected to remain close to 1995�s bumper level. For coarse grains, the harvest of the minor 1996 summer crop, mostly sorghum, is virtually complete. Despite damaging floods in early May, which seriously affected up to 20 percent of crops in some of the worst hit areas, a bumper sorghum output of about 1.5 million tons is expected. Planting of the bulk of the winter coarse grain crops, mostly barley, is yet to get underway in earnest as farmers are taking advantage of rains to sow wheat and other early crops which require a longer growing season. Despite strong price prospects also for barley, the area sown to this crop is expected to decrease marginally because of the substantial shift to wheat. However, any delays to the sowing of early grain crops could lead to an increase in the barley area. Harvesting of the rice crop is almost complete. Output of paddy in 1996 is forecast at 1.3 million tons, up 13 percent from the previous year.