AUSTRALIAN lentil growers continue to enjoy steady prices of just over $800 a tonne as the country works its way through its largest lentil export program on record.
A good season through the crop's heartland in South Australia and Victoria means it is likely over a million tonnes of the pulse will be moved before next harvest.
The scale of growth in the lentil space has Australian Grain Exports pulse trader Will Alexander saying that lentils were now Australia's most valuable pulse export.
"We've seen a couple of tough years for chickpeas, both in terms of production and finding markets, the national production is now back from the two million tonnes we saw a few years back to just over half a million tonnes, whereas it was easily the biggest year ever for lentils," he said.
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According to official Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) data last year's national chickpea crop was 541,000 tonnes, compared to 1.41m tonnes of lentils.
Going back just six seasons to 2016-17 the dynamic was totally different, with 2m tonnes of chickpeas and 680,000 tonnes of lentils.
"The current dynamic is not likely to last forever, there could be an increase in chickpea prices and people may get back to growing more, but certainly people in the south are increasing their plantings all the time, with some very good returns in recent years."
While chickpeas have not attracted significant acreages in northern NSW and southern Queensland where the big tonnages for the crop are normally produced there are some signs of positivity in the industry.
Sanjiv Dubey, director at Graintrend, said prices had snuck up to around $600/t over recent months.
"There is very good demand from places like Pakistan and Bangladesh, however there are a couple of logistical and financial constraints holding things back a little," he said.
"We have issues with credit in Pakistan, making it difficult for Pakistani buyers to organise purchases, while we are also competing against a range of other commodities for shipping slots out of Australia."
Mr Dubey said there had been good flows of chickpeas out of Queensland ports, but less out of Newcastle, traditionally an important option for chickpea exporters.
A lack of access to the Indian market, due to tariffs, remains an issue, and while there has been industry chatter of potential easing of restrictions, Mr Dubey said nothing formal had been announced.
There has been no such issues with lentil exports in Victoria and South Australia.
"We've been exporting bucket loads of lentils every month, in both bulk and containers, probably a few more via bulk," Mr Alexander said.
"So far there have been over 730,000 tonnes go out and with what is booked for later it will easily top a million tonnes."
With tariffs for lentils into India not an issue there is good demand for product from there, combined with other subcontinental markets such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
"Sri Lanka in particular are very hungry from our large red Jumbo variety lentils."
Mr Alexander said for the most part growers had been able to find homes for weather damaged lentils following last year's wet harvest without significant discounts.
"Some of the lentils might not meet container specifications but there are plenty of bulk options with slightly lesser quality requirements."
"There are some lentils which are lower quality again but they will be able to sell them somewhere.
"It has been an exciting time for the industry, we've seen a big growth in plantings combined with huge demand."