Australia: Both malting and feed barley prices across all Australia’s port zones are slightly up

Prices across all Australia’s port zones are up slightly for both malting and feed barley, as harvest slowly grinds to a conclusion amidst wet conditions, RMI Analytics said in their latest report.

On the east coast, the very good early harvest results in the north offset some of the negative crop results (drought, frost, rain at harvest) in the southern areas of the east-coast, including western Victoria and South Australia.

With Western Australia harvest finishing rather well, the result on prices is a developing spread between the east-coast and west-coast, with a premium existing on the east-coast.

With the main malting demand residing in the south-east, and with the quality result, there will be a need to pull malting barley from further north, contributing to this premium development (it could widen further once harvest ends and if demand improves). On exports, Western Australia remains the leader in volumes and will remain so going forward, the analysts reported.

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