Growers, harvesters and industry executives gaze at sodden fields as big mechanical harvesters push through mud and slush to cut cane for transportation to nearby sugar mills, which produce much of the world's sugar trade.

"It hasn't rained for six days, that's a drought," quips Delmo Tarditi, owner of a 140-hectare cane farm and chairman of grower organisation CANEGROWERS in the Tully district.

Jokes about the unseasonal deluge which destroyed about 10 per cent of Australia's 1998 sugar output contrast with evidence in the fields of frantic attempts by growers to harvest cane.

One field has a A$250,000 (US$160,000) 12-tonne Enfield track transporter lying idle as a conventional Cameco harvester takes advantage of a brief respite from rain to harvest whatever cane it can.

The Enfield wasbought earlier when the harvester became bogged. Now it's an expensive spare, Tarditi said.

Counting the cost: Nobody knows exactly how much damage will have been done to 1998 sugar output by the heavy rain, the result of the end of the 1997 El Nino weather effect in the southwest Pacific.

Queensland Sugar Corp, which owns and exports production from Australia's third biggest agricultural export, usually worth about A$1.7 billion, tentatively puts Queensland's production at less than 4.8 million tonnes, well down from initial estimates of 5.2 million tonnes.

"It's absolutely the worst year in living memory in terms of the number of days it has rained and the total rainfall," said grower Alf Cristaudo, a QSC director in Ingham and chairman of CANEGROWERS' Herbert River branch.

The longest period Tully district has had without rain this year is eight days; the second-longest was six days. Weather bureau records show that the biggest 1998 deluge occurred in September, when 610 mm of rain fell at theTully sugar mill station, compared with the 74-year average for the month of 121 mm. In August 159 mm fell, against an average of 132 mm, while in October, 208 mm fell, against an 102 mm.

Not giving up, yet: Australia's largest sugar mill, Victoria, in the town of Ingham, normally produces 0.5 per cent of the world's annual raw sugar by crushing 3.5 million tonnes of cane a year to make 500,000 tonnes of sugar and 90,000 tonnes of molasses. "I'm not prepared to give up yet," said mill manager Peter Collins as the mill exuded steam from its diminished crush.

But how much more cane the mill could crush depended on how much rain fell, he said. It was hard to see the crush continuing beyond three weeks.

Victoria mill's raw sugar production this year is 20 per cent down on normal output as it attempts to cope with cane that is waterlogged, covered in extraneous matter and showing very low sugar content of about 10 per cent against a normal 13.5 per cent.

"I've been in the sugar industry for 30 years andI've never faced anything like this," Collins said.

Six km out to sea on Lucinda bulk sugar terminal, the biggest wharf of its kind in the world, raw sugar receivals by conveyor belt from the mill are low.

Overnight rain had slowed the mill down again, manager Steve Andersen said as the wind whipped choppy seas where Panamax vessels of up to 65,000 tonnes are loaded for export to Canada, Asia and the Middle East.

Growers face immediate losses. Normal sugar content levels produce about A$30 a tonne of cane for growers, but this year's average is returning only A$21-A$22.

With growing costs usually estimated at A$18 a tonne of cane, rain has wiped out two-thirds of growers' margins.

Having to buy expensive vehicles to carry the cane through the sodden fields only inflates those costs, and with canefield property values down by about 50 per cent, the future looks bleak for Queensland sugar farmers.

"It's a disaster," Tarditi said, surveying his devastated crop.