The company, which manages the port system in South Australia, also dismissed claims the issues in SA this harvest were anything like what happened in Western Australia last season, saying there were simply some minor issues arising due to large volumes of warehoused grain.

Viterra’s storage and handling operations manager Andrew Hannon said that the company remained committed to developing an efficient supply chain, but that the shipping stem had posed unique problems this year.

“The situation we are now seeing - more grain in the storage network due to the large harvest, more growers choosing to warehouse their grain, and as a result marketers not shipping because they don’t have ownership of grain to sell – is a reflection of the global marketing conditions,” Mr Hannon claimed.

He said conditions were made even tougher by international ocean freight rates, which were making it tough for Australian grain exports to compete on the international market.

“Generally Australian grain is higher quality than our competitors, however, there comes a time when price outweighs quality.

“With prices as they are, we are now seeing the world's most quality conscious market, Japan, explore the potential of Russian and Ukrainian grain supplies.

“Available grain is another factor – the Canadians and the Americans will have plenty of high protein wheat and the Europeans have large surpluses of malting barley.

These factors, according to Mr Hannon, were making it difficult for marketers to attract grain for export, although other exporters, such as Elders Toepfer Grain, have publicly said they have had no issue in attracting a marketable parcel of grain from SA for export.

Mr Hannon said Viterra was making an attempt to be more transparent with information regarding the shipping timetable.

“Information regarding the current status of the grain export program from South Australia, which includes the activity of all marketers, can be gathered by reviewing the shipping schedule (shipping stem) on our website.

“This information is updated daily and also shows the availability of capacity for extra shipping.

He said in spite of the frustrations of managing the shipping stem, Viterra was happy to have the problems inherent with a big SA crop.

“Ultimately, the large harvest is a positive turn-around for South Australian growers and we are also committed to working with marketers to ensure an efficient supply chain and ready access to our ports.”