INCREASED sales to Bangladesh have lifted Australia’s October chickpea exports to 47,644 tonnes, up 61 per cent from the September total of 29,609t, according to the latest export data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Strong buying from Bangladesh appears set to continue up to March-April delivery to meet the peak demand period of Ramadan, which this year starts in late April.

Table 1: ABS Australian chickpea export tonnages for August, September and October 2019.

The figures reflect continued buying of containerised chickpeas by Pakistan, which has been a strong purchaser of tonnage carried over from last year and in 2017, and discounted accordingly.

Bangladesh has been buying what it can on new-crop, and its demand has pushed current prices to highs of around $940 per tonne DCT Brisbane.

“Pakistan has been buying the maximum quantity of containers, and Bangladesh has been buying much of the new-crop,” Pulse Australia and GrainTrend director Sanjiv Dubey said.

ABARES earlier this month forecast Australia’s 2019/20 chickpea crop at 289,000t, and industry estimates say around 150,000t of them were grown in Central Queensland (CQ).

The national total includes around 70,000-80,000t of kabuli chickpeas.