Australia: Barley harvest being wrapped up amid wet weather conditions

Wet conditions continued as the last piece of harvest is wrapping up in Australia. This final phase of harvest, dominated by wet conditions, has seen a reduction in the availability of malting barley from the crop 2023 result, at 11.19 mln tonnes, RMI Analytics said in their late January report.

A small bit of Victoria harvest remains, but it will be all feed quality. With more rain in the forecast, the soil moisture setup for crop 2024 is established in a very favourable manner.

Australian barley prices are lower across the board, and Planet variety continues to be at up USD10/tonne premium over the Malt1 prices. The export pace to China being very strong, 721 thousand tonnes were shipped in November 2023 (up from 664 thousand in October). China’s total 2023 imports are nearly double the 2022 volumes (all origins).

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