{"id":42263,"date":"2025-08-04T02:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T02:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/42263\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T02:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T02:22:10","slug":"lucrative-indian-chickpea-market-reopens-for-australian-farmers-with-10-per-cent-tariff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/42263\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucrative Indian chickpea market reopens for Australian farmers with 10 per cent tariff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mervyn Bourne has been a farmer for 35 years, but this is the first time he has gone all in on chickpeas.<\/p>\n

Encouraged by a stabilised trade relationship with India, the central Queensland grower is planting all 1,300 hectares of his farm to the pulse crop, for one good reason.<\/p>\n

“The money,” Mr Bourne said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Merv Bourne has planted his entire 1,300 hectares with chickpeas this season. (Supplied: Merv Bourne)<\/p>\n

When deciding what to plant for the winter season on his property at Kilcummin, about 280 kilometres south-west of Mackay, Mr Bourne would normally spread his risk across crops like wheat, barley, oat and chickpeas.<\/p>\n

For the first time since 2017, the crop known to be reliable in the field is also a sure bet in the world’s biggest chickpea market.<\/p>\n

“They’re probably one of the safest crops to grow and they give you the best return,” Mr Bourne said.<\/p>\n

While tariff-free access to India may be a thing of the past, the renewed access coupled with rising prices means growers like Mr Bourne are confident to roll the dice.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

India has lowered tariffs to 10 per cent on Australian chickpeas. (ABC Kimberley: Courtney Fowler)<\/p>\n

On and off again market<\/p>\n

India was the choice destination for Australian chickpea exporters<\/a> for years, enjoying tariff-free access to the world’s largest consumer of the legume.<\/p>\n

But in 2017, amid growing pressure to stabilise prices and support domestic farmers<\/a>, India introduced large tariffs on chickpea imports, effectively killing the trade.<\/p>\n

Australian production plummeted \u2014 that year the crop was more than 2 million tonnes, but by 2023 it had shrunk to 500,000 tonnes.<\/p>\n

Even Australia’s free trade agreement with India signed in 2022 failed to reinstate the trade.<\/p>\n

The industry scrambled to diversify its markets, and now exports chickpeas to Bangladesh, Pakistan and Jebel Ali in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Then, in May 2024, India made a surprise announcement <\/a>\u2014 Australia could once again send tariff-free chickpeas, but only if they arrived before the end of March 2025.<\/p>\n

The south Asian country was desperate to secure supply<\/a> as it faced one of its lowest crops in five years due to bad weather.<\/p>\n

The announcement came just as Australian farmers were deciding what to plant for winter, kicking off a race to get crops to the sub-continent by the tight deadline.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A chickpea crop planted in central Queensland. (ABC News: Megan Hughes)<\/p>\n

Prices skyrocketed, and despite wild storms, logistics issues and worker strikes, <\/a>Australia’s Pulse Council Chair Peter Wilson said about 2 million tonnes made it in before the deadline.<\/p>\n

“Some of the best desi chickpeas I’ve ever seen were produced in the 2024 early 2025 season,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They were hard, they were well filled, they were a beautiful colour.”<\/p>\n

India eventually reinstated its tariffs but not to the level they were before \u2014 offering 10 per cent rather than the 66 per cent that had effectively been in place.<\/p>\n

‘Open book consideration’<\/p>\n

Mr Wilson said planting conditions were ideal in the northern growing area in Queensland thanks to a wet summer, which had growers’ decision-making.<\/p>\n

“It’s been an open book consideration because there’s been adequate profile moisture,” he said.<\/p>\n

“When you have that farmers will consider all of their options.”\"A<\/p>\n

The first region to harvest is usually central Queensland in spring. (ABC News: Lara Webster)<\/p>\n

Mr Wilson said while prices had eased from last season’s highs of $1,100 a tonne, they were still sitting strong at $700 a tonne.<\/p>\n

On top of a positive economic environment, Mr Bourne said his chickpeas were also benefiting from good weather.<\/p>\n

“We’re looking very good, probably one of the best ever [years], actually,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got ample moisture; the first lot of chickpeas we planted are just starting to get a nice foliage on them.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully, we can get a dry October and November at harvest time.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Rhys Daniels has planted both wheat and chickpeas this winter season. (ABC News: Megan Hughes)<\/p>\n

Rhys Daniels has a mixed cropping and cattle operation more than 100 kilometres south of Mr Bourne’s, at Capella.<\/p>\n

This winter he is growing wheat and chickpeas, but says he understands why Mr Bourne has gone all in.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a pretty blessed year really, we’ve had lots of rain when other people haven’t,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The gross margin for chickpeas blows pretty much everything else out of the water in dryland.”<\/p>\n

Mr Daniels’s family has grown the legume since the 1990s, and he said they had seen some great years.<\/p>\n

“2016 was a stand-out year with record yields and a record price,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It really redefined what we actually could grow out of chickpea, the price skyrocketed to $1100 a tonne.”<\/p>\n

“It was pretty exciting.”<\/p>\n

\"Machine<\/p>\n

Around 2 million tonnes of Australian chickpeas went to India last season. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

While Queensland is starting off strong, Mr Wilson said Western Australia was doing “okay” and Victoria and South Australia were suffering with drought.<\/p>\n

“Conditions were still very, very dry there, most of the crop went in dry,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had a couple of shots of rain through the south-east now, crops are out of the ground, but they’re juvenile and they just don’t have a lot of moisture underneath them.”<\/p>\n

He said harvesting was still weeks away.<\/p>\n

“Lots of things need to go well for us to have good outcomes,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think the conditions are set up for another decent year.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mervyn Bourne has been a farmer for 35 years, but this is the first time he has gone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[24212,84,24209,24211,24213,24214,24208,24210,24215,467,24216,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-42263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-autralian-chickpeas","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-chickpea-exports","11":"tag-chickpea-growers","12":"tag-chickpea-recipes","13":"tag-chickpea-tariff","14":"tag-chickpeas","15":"tag-chickpeas-to-india","16":"tag-legumes","17":"tag-markets","18":"tag-pulses","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}