Australia: Western Australia’s barley plantings to decline

Less barley is expected to be planted in some parts of Western Australia this year, due to an unfavourable price forecast, ABC communicated on March, 3.

Barley is the second biggest crop grown in WA, with 1.5 million tonnes harvested each year.

Malting barley is worth about A$230 a tonne in WA at the moment, but a world oversupply means prices won't budge much higher in the short to medium term.

GrainPool marketer Scott Wallace says that's got some farmers reconsidering how much barley they will plant this season.

"There's a lot of interesting scenarios to come out of it, and certainly my dealings with growers in the last couple of weeks have pointed to possibly less barley than other commodities."

03 March, 2010