Harvesting continued through January in many areas of South Australia and Victoria. The main pulse affected has been beans both broad and faba types.
Broad beans are mainly grown in the South east of South Australia and due to lack of hot weather harvesting is still continuing. Size has been good but the delays have meant a lot of staining of the seed coats and consequent downgrading of the quality.
In the western area of Victoria harvesting was severely delayed due to farmers not being able to physically get back into their paddocks. Harvesting restarted a week back and most of the beans are being graded as no 3 due to poor coloured seed coats. There is some demand for splitting but this is another challenge for marketers to move these beans.
Kabuli chick peas have also suffered very badly from rain damage which has left seed coats very brittle and the peas very prone to splitting. Considering the strength pricewise in the International market at the moment this is a real disaster for the affected growers.
Lentils.
While the harvest and hence shipments were delayed due to weather exports for December were at a brisk pace with over 14,000 mt being shipped out in that month. Traders report also a busy January and February as well . While physical activity is strong , consumption are quiet with the exception of Sri Lanka where there has been a lot of buying activity for both split lentils and peas due to the floods which have wipt out much on the local vegetable crop.
