Australia: Exporters finding solid demand for Australian barley

Exporters appear to be finding solid demand for Australian barley, the Stock & Land reported on February 28.

This comes little more than a week after ABARES dramatically raised its estimate of last season’s harvest to a record 13.4 million tonnes.

Strong exporter demand for barley has seen feed barley prices into Geelong climb by A$10 a tonne from the lows of mid-January to A$164 last week. Barley exports in containers from Victoria have rocketed in recent months. Monthly Port of Melbourne data reveals 48,071 tonnes of barley was shipped in January, up from 34,200 tonnes in December and a monthly average of less than 10,000 tonnes for most of 2016.

China has returned as a major barley buyer. It imported 561,000 tonnes of Australian barley in January – the largest monthly imports by China in two years and third-largest ever.

27 February, 2017