The clearest alignment between season and land value came from opposite ends of the country. In Victoria, wheat production fell 20.6 per cent to 4.2 million tonnes despite planted area holding steady, barley dropped 17.7 per cent, canola fell 18.9 per cent, and lentils were down 38.8 per cent. These were not decisions to pull back on planting. They were yield failures driven by dry conditions that persisted through the critical winter months across the Wimmera, Mallee and western districts. The land market read it accurately. Median dryland cropping values in Victoria declined 3.23 per cent over the year to $10,187 per hectare, the only state to record a fall in absolute terms, the only state to record a fall in absolute terms. At the other end of the continent, Western Australia delivered the strongest production rebound of any major cropping state. Wheat output lifted 46.7 per cent to 12.4 million tonnes, barley surged 54.3 per cent to 6.5 million tonnes, and oats production rose 66 per cent as planted area more than doubled. The turnaround was built on above-average rainfall from July through September across the grainbelt, followed by a mild spring largely free of damaging frosts. Median dryland cropping values rose 13.41 per cent to $6,448 per hectare, with a five-year growth rate of 21.75 per cent reflecting how durably WA's cropping country has re-rated since the record 2022/23 season.
Queensland's dry cropping country told a similarly coherent story. Wheat production rose 72.8 per cent to 2.1 million tonnes, barley more than doubled to 864,000 tonnes, and chickpeas surged 258.9 per cent to 806,000 tonnes as growers across the Darling Downs and central Queensland responded to a genuinely strong season. Planted wheat area expanded 65.9 per cent, a signal of grower confidence that preceded the result rather than simply following it. Median dryland cropping values rose 13.56 per cent over the year to $16,174 per hectare, the highest median of any state in the dataset, reflecting both the season's performance and the structural premium the market places on Queensland's northern cropping country.
New South Wales is where the story becomes more complicated. The 2024/25 crop season was by most measures the state's best in several years. Wheat production jumped 55.9 per cent to 13.1 million tonnes, making NSW the largest wheat-producing state in the country for the year. Barley rose 72.8 per cent and chickpeas surged more than fourfold to 1.2 million tonnes as growers across the central west and north-west shifted further into pulse rotations. Yet median dryland cropping values fell 2.33 per cent to $9,740 per hectare. The explanation lies not in what was grown but in what it was worth. Global wheat supplies remain ample, with the USDA forecasting a record northern hemisphere crop for 2025/26, keeping grain prices soft despite strong Australian volumes. With commodity revenues under pressure, the investment case for acquiring additional cropping country weakened even as the paddocks performed. The RBA's decision to raise rates in February 2026, reversing a period of cuts through 2025, added further constraint on buyer appetite.
South Australia rounds out the picture with a recovery story driven by affordability rather than season. The 2024/25 production data was poor by any measure, wheat fell 37.4 per cent to 2.88 million tonnes, barley dropped 48.8 per cent, canola was off 31.8 per cent, and lupins fell 82.3 per cent across the Eyre Peninsula, Yorke Peninsula and Mid-North. But that difficult season followed an equally challenging 2024, during which drought conditions drove a reduction in transaction activity and values declined. Having fallen behind the national trend through that period, SA's dry cropping land entered 2025 at a relative discount that drew renewed buyer interest. The affordability gap that opened during the drought years proved to be a circuit breaker, with buyers returning to a state where productive land could still be acquired at prices well below eastern Australian equivalents. Median dryland cropping values rose 40.2 per cent over the year to $9,433 per hectare, a catch-up move that reflects how quickly sentiment can shift when a market has underperformed for long enough. The production data for 2024/25 was largely irrelevant to that dynamic. Buyers were pricing the land's long-run capability, not its most recent harvest.
That distinction, between paying for what land has recently produced and paying for what it is capable of producing, is the central question facing buyers across all states heading into 2026. Bureau of Meteorology forecasts point to an even chance of above or below median rainfall across eastern states through autumn, with WA facing a higher probability of drier conditions following two strong seasons. Global grain markets offer limited price support with wheat stocks building internationally, though canola remains better supported and barley export demand from China and the Middle East continues to underpin returns for Australian growers. In that environment, the states where season and land value are already telling the same story are the ones worth watching most closely.