Extract from Els Wynen Conversion to organic grain farming in Australia, 11th Australian Barley Technical Symposium, Adelaide, September 2003

In 2000-2001, the estimated farm gate value of organically grown grains amounted to $23.3 million, of which most ($19.1 million) was sold as cereal, $3.7 million as oilseed, and $0.4 million as legumes. Of the cereals, 72 per cent was reported as having been sold as organic, which means to a farm-gate value of $13 million (Wynen 2003).

A different way of looking at the market is to explore how much has been exported over the years. AQIS has kept records of weights of exports.  A provisional analysis of their data shows that 2000-2001 was the year of highest exports, with over 25,000 tons of cereal exported, less than 2,000 of which consisted of barley. In the following year, this dwindled to less than 500 tons of barley exported, and virtually nothing in 2002-2003, presumably because of the drought. The total amount of cereals exported decreased to around 17,000 tons in 2001-2002, and 3,000 tons in the last year. Interestingly, the decrease was least in ‘flour’ exports.

If we assume that the cereals were exported for an average of $200 per ton, which seems reasonable as most of the cereals were exported as wheat, this would lead to export earnings of $5 million. If this were to be the case, less than half of the produce sold by the present organic farmers was sold on the export market in 2000-2001. As organically grown grain is not only for human consumption but is needed as an input on organic livestock farms (such as for poultry and dairy), this seems a reasonable possibility. Decreases in exports in subsequent years can than be seen as a lack of supply, rather than of demand.

The export of barley has, over the years, been to Switzerland and the UK, and also some to Norway and, in 2002, to Japan. For ‘flour’, presumably wheat, the demand was overwhelmingly from Japan, and in 2002 also from New Zealand and Korea. Wheat grain exports have been exported mainly to Switzerland, UK, Italy and France, with a modest shipment to China both in 2001 and 2002.