Australia's largest grain growing corporation, AACL, has struck a pre-purchase deal with dealer Glencore for the upcoming harvest.

Several weeks earlier, a deal worth $50 million with Co-operative Bulk Handling was shelved and AACL tracked down alternate sources.

Grain farmers already signed with AACL are pleased to be informed about the new deal, because they were already assured of their payment for second seeding this week.

Peter McEwen, chairman of AACL, said in a statement that he is expecting the $28.8 million agreement with dealer Glencore would be lengthened because of several reasons.

"We were delighted that Glencore came up trumps, and obviously we were discussing with another party and we were really unable to conclude that satisfactorily in the required time frame," Mr. McEwen says.

"And in the interest of making payments to farmers, we elected to go with Glencore, and it's certainly a deal that we are very happy with."

AACL also announced earlier that it is expecting less production tonnages for the fiscal year, and this will subsequently affect revenue and profits.

"An announcement on revised earnings guidance for the 2010 financial year will be made as soon as possible," AACL announced in a statement in Tuesday.