Australian chickpea prices have rallied following a couple of years of ‘pretty ordinary’ prices and increased 25% month on moth in 2015, reaching $810 per metric tonne. “This year we’re planting between 550 and 600 hectares. We’re expecting that to yield about 700000-800000 tonnes, double what we had last year,” says Pentag Nidera grower Rob Brealey. “We had good opening rain, and we’re expecting a dry winter and spring. Chickpeas like that.”
Although Australia already exports close to 95% of its chickpea crop, the demand this year is extra high due to crop failure in India, the world’s largest producer of chickpeas. Consumption has also increased within Australia though, according to Mr Brealey. “Australia exports to India, Bangladesh and the UAE, and other countries where chickpeas are a staple of the national diet, has gone up,” he adds. “But I think they are generally one of the crops where consumption has gone up because westerners now see chickpeas and other pulses as a good introduction to vegetarianism, a good source of protein and a food that is very very good to your system.”
In Australia, it makes sense for farmers to use chickpeas as a rotation crop, Mr Brealey says, because the tap root system they grow will extend down into the ground to find water, and the crops survive dry climates. “Chickpeas have a very big tap root system, unlike wheat,” he says. “In a dry year it will follow the water down underground.” The chickpea seeds also reintroduce nitrogen back into the soil where planted and help to prepare the land for other crops during the rest of the year.
Mr Brealey’s crop is currently being planted, and should be finished in the third week of June. Harvest is set to begin after September.
For more information
Rob Brealey
Pentag Nidera
Phone: +61400366304
E-mail: rbrealey@pentagnidira-au.com