Posted on March, 25, 2025 at 04:33 pm
VOLUME trading in Australian pulses has dwindled as current-crop stocks run low and lentil and chickpea tariffs put the brakes on buying from India, Australia’s biggest pulse market.
While rain in Queensland is bolstering prospects for another big chickpea crop, conditions are mixed in New South Wales, and critically dry in South Australia and Victoria.
Prices for lupins and faba beans have risen on domestic demand from graziers in SA and Vic, but export remains the main pathway for what little quantity remains unsold.
Prices quoted are in Australian dollars per tonne unless stated otherwise.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show Australia shipped 1.6 million tonnes (Mt) of chickpeas from October 1 to January 31 out of a total 2024-25 crop seen by ABARES at a record 2.27Mt.
With the market’s knowledge that India is expected to reinstate a chickpea tariff on April 1, February volume is likely to add only around 100,000t to that, and March is seen as unlikely to include bulk shipments.
It means containerised trade, plus bulk business to Pakistan and Bangladesh, will absorb what is left, excluding the 50,000t or so growers will retain for seed.
India’s exit from the market and the end to the bulk chickpea program have seen prompt prices ease, and trading interest is now shifting to new crop, which will be planted in May-June.
This market is sitting at around $830/t delivered Darling Downs for November-December, up around $10/t from last month.
Even with chickpea prices down by more than $100/t from where they were in recent months, Sunrise Commodities managing director Scott Merson said growers saw current values for new-crop as “pretty attractive”.
“With new-crop wheat at $360/t delivered Downs, growers are certainly looking at chickpeas,” Mr Merson said.
The current-crop market may kick again if the Indian Government extends the tariff-free period, which is generally seen by the Australian trade as a slim chance.
Traders report a reluctance from some importers to pay for chickpeas that missed the tariff-free window because of delays in transshipment through South-east Asia, or other logistics reasons.
“If the tariff goes on, that will make the price in India go up, which should be good for those chickpeas,” one trader said.
While SA’s faba bean exports have been down hugely because of its tough season, and related on-farm demand for stockfeed, Australia has continued to be the major supplier of faba beans to Egypt over recent months.
In estimates released early March, the 2024-25 Australian crop is seen by ABARES at 694,500t, second only to the 2022-23 crop of 730,000t, with record production in NSW pumping up the figure.
| FABA BEANS | 2023-24 ha | 2023-24 tns | 2024-25 ha | 2024-25 tns |
| Qld | 15,000 | 23,000 | 19,000 | 37,000 |
| NSW | 110,000 | 165,000 | 160,000 | 350,000 |
| Vic | 100,000 | 190,000 | 120,000 | 180,000 |
| Tas | 100 | 200 | 0 | 0 |
| SA | 110,000 | 250,000 | 90,000 | 110,000 |
| WA | 8,000 | 12,200 | 9,500 | 17,500 |
| TOTAL | 343,100 | 640,200 | 398,500 | 694,500 |
Table 1: March 2024 estimates for Australian faba bean hectares and tonnes produced in 2023-24 and 2024-25. Source: ABARES
A part cargo is loading this week, with further hatches to be filled between now and April-May.
“Bulk shipments keep ticking along,” Agri-Oz Exports managing director Francois Darcas said.
Nominal prices for containerised fabas sit at around $675/t delivered Melbourne, up roughly $15/t on last month, and $700/t delivered port, but parcels from growers are getting hard to accumulate.
This is expected to change if the rain growers are banking on falls ahead of the ideal planting window which opens in the last week of April.
“There’s feed demand for fabas, but export is paying more,” Australian Grain Export trader Will Alexander said.
Egypt could end up buying around 500,000t of Australia’s 2024-25 faba beans, ahead of European product become available in the second of this year.
Lupins for sheep feed are selling at around $700/t delivered in SA, well above the $520-$530/t delivered port in Western Australia, Australia’s biggest lupin producer by far.
The differential between the two prices means WA lupins are pricing into SA, which normally does not have to buy in feed from other states.
SA is already buying in lupins from the southern half of NSW at a price which easily covers the $50/t-plus in road freight.
The Indian Government reinstated its tariff on Australian lentils on March 8, ahead of the expected April 1, at the most-favoured-nation rate of 10 percent, halved to 5pc for lentils coming in within the anual quota of 150,000t.
Latest ABARES numbers put Vic’s 2024-25 lentil crop at 535,000t, down 31pc from 780,000t in 2023-24, while SA’s 555,000t crop was down 27pc from 760,000t in 2023-24, with the fall buffered from the low-rainfall growing season by a record area.
Lentils were the major cash crop for SA growers at harvest and a major cash crop for Vic growers too, meaning grower stocks are limited.
Market expectations that India’s tariff would return have kept the trade turning volume over quickly.
The tail-off in bulk exports has seen the delivered port market consolidate at around $850/t, down $50/t from highs seen last month when the trade was eyeing the last of the volume demand from India.
“Bangladesh is picking up, and there’s still demand out of Sri Lanka,” Mr Alexander said.
The bright spot is Jumbo-type lentils, which are trading for prompt sale into Sri Lanka at $70-$80/t over the smaller Nipper types.
“Farmers are well sold and the weather is not inducing them to sell at all.
“We’re not going to see lentils coming off the farm until it rains.”
While SA and western Vic, Australia’s two dominant lentil-growing areas, are often dry at this time of year, subsoil moisture levels are critically low in many paddocks, and hot days have extended well into autumn.
Mr Alexander said there was “definitely concern” about the very dry soils, but history pointed to a break arriving in April or May to germinate dry-sown crops.
“There’s always a concern until they get breaking rain, and farmers have sold enough lentils for now.”
While lentils have a set ratio in many SA and Vic rotations, chances are some Canadian farmers will be upping their area in response to China’s 100pc tariff on its yellow peas, canola meal, and canola oil, and expected 25pc US tariffs on canola meal, oil, and seed.
Mr Alexander said the weight of a bigger-than-normal Canadian crop could make itself felt ahead of Australia’s new crop being shipped from November onward.
“Canada could be looking at a bigger plant that will be coming to market in September-October.”
Source: Grain Central