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Rain in Australia's Parched Crop Zones Boosts Harvest Outlook

The crop is seen in a wheat field ahead of annual harvest near Moree, Australia, October 27, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Barrett
The crop is seen in a wheat field ahead of annual harvest near Moree, Australia, October 27, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Barrett
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Rain in Australia's Parched Crop Zones Boosts Harvest Outlook

The crop is seen in a wheat field ahead of annual harvest near Moree, Australia, October 27, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Barrett
The crop is seen in a wheat field ahead of annual harvest near Moree, Australia, October 27, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Barrett

Rain in parched areas of Western and South Australia and more expected in coming days could add as much as a million tons to the country's wheat harvest, analysts said this week.
The larger wheat production would help boost global supply after crop losses in Russia pushed Chicago futures prices to 10-month highs. Australia is a major exporter of wheat, barley and canola, and all three crops would benefit from the rains, Reuters said.
While Australia's eastern regions have had plenty of moisture, in the west and south many farmers have been planting seeds into dry earth and hoping for showers.
"Without the rain, we were heading for a reduction for wheat of half a million tons or more in Western Australia," said Ole Houe, head of advisory services at IKON Commodities in Sydney.
"With the rain, we might even add half a million," he said. "Our forecast is still more than 30 million tons and that number is probably growing now rather than shrinking."
Rain in Western Australia would also stabilize the canola crop since the state accounts for nearly half the country's canola production.
Farmers will also be encouraged to sow more seeds, which could result in Australia's planted area being up to 5% larger than if no rain had come, said Andrew Whitelaw at agricultural consultants Episode 3 in Canberra.
Precipitation this week and next should add between 500,000 and a million tons to the national wheat harvest, Whitelaw said, though he added that some eastern areas were now at risk of becoming too wet.
Much of Western Australia's crop belt and almost all of South Australia's received rain this week, and more widespread rain should fall in the coming eight days, particularly in the west and the east, Australia's weather bureau said.
In a long-range forecast this week, the bureau said June would likely see below-median rainfall in most crop areas but July-through-September should be wetter than average, boosting hopes for the harvest.
Australia's agriculture ministry is due to issue a quarterly crop report with its expectations for production on Tuesday.

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‘A Way of Life’: The Japanese Dancer Conquering Spain’s Flamenco Scene

Japan's Junko Hagiwara, also known as La Yunko, poses for pictures at the Instituto Andaluz de Flamenco in Seville, on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
Japan's Junko Hagiwara, also known as La Yunko, poses for pictures at the Instituto Andaluz de Flamenco in Seville, on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
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‘A Way of Life’: The Japanese Dancer Conquering Spain’s Flamenco Scene

Japan's Junko Hagiwara, also known as La Yunko, poses for pictures at the Instituto Andaluz de Flamenco in Seville, on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
Japan's Junko Hagiwara, also known as La Yunko, poses for pictures at the Instituto Andaluz de Flamenco in Seville, on August 29, 2024. (AFP)

Japan's Junko Hagiwara has caused a stir in Spain's traditional flamenco world by unexpectedly winning the prize for best dancer at the country's leading flamenco festival -- the first foreigner to do so.

The announcement that the 48-year-old -- who performs under the stage name "La Yunko" -- was awarded the honor at the closing ceremony of August's "Cante de las Minas" festival in the southeastern town of La Union was met with a mixture of applause and some jeering.

"I was very surprised, I could not believe it. I believed it but I did not believe it," she told AFP by phone from the southern city of Seville, where she has lived for over two decades when asked about her reaction to getting the award.

Hagiwara, who was born in Kawasaki near Tokyo, said she did not notice the jeers because she "went blank" when her name was announced as the winner.

"When I dance, I don't think I am a foreigner, that I am Japanese. I don't think that. It doesn't occur to me. I am simply on stage, I listen to the guitar, the singing and what I feel I express in my dancing," she added.

Created in 1961, the "Cante de las Minas" festival is considered to be the world's most important annual flamenco festival. It features prizes for best singing, guitar playing and musical instrument performance in addition to dance.

Critics were unanimous in their support for Hagiwara.

"I liked her more than her competitors for three reasons: her classicism, the fact that she did not dance for the gallery, that is, for the public, and, finally, her good training," flamenco critic Manuel Bohorquez wrote in online newspaper Sevilla Info.

- 'Way of life -

Hagiwara said she became fascinated by flamenco -- a centuries-old art form that combines rhythmic hand clapping, stamping feet and impassioned singing -- at age 14 when she watched a gymnastics championship in which a Spanish competitor used the genre's guitar music.

"I loved the flamenco guitar, the sound and the melody, the rhythm," she said.

There was no internet at the time to help her explore her new interest, so she went to a shop that rented records and borrowed the only available flamenco CD.

"I listened to it, but there was no guitar, it was just singing," she recalled.

"Flamenco performers often have a very hoarse voice, very deep, and it scared me," she added while laughing.

Hagiwara went on to study pedagogy at Waseda University in Tokyo, where she joined a flamenco club, and started to take flamenco lessons.

But she felt she needed more.

In 2002 she decided to take the dramatic move across the world to Seville, capital of the southern region of Andalusia and the cradle of flamenco, to pursue her passion.

She made the move despite objections from her parents.

"In Japan, you can learn technique, choreography, but, of course, flamenco is culture, it's a way of life," she said.

"My father got very, very angry. He did not speak to me for three months. And my mother said 'how shameful, how shameful'," Hagiwara said.

- Culture shocks -

In Spain, she dedicated herself to flamenco, learning to dance with the best teachers, became fluent in Spanish and married an Andalusian man from the coastal town of Tarifa.

She gradually made a name for herself as a performer in Seville, and has also taught flamenco.

As is the case with many foreigners, she was surprised at first by the lively way locals talked to each other.

"I thought everyone was fighting!" Hagiwara said.

There were other differences.

"In Japanese culture, we place a lot of value on hiding the feeling, and in flamenco, you have to show it. In Japan it is for the inside, and in flamenco it is for the outside," she said.