Argentina: Virtually no demand for Argentina malting barley at the moment

Argentina’s barley crop’24 at 5.0 mln tonnes contains roughly 60% malting barley quality but there is virtually no demand present. This leaves a very comfortable situation for malting barley, where 1.5 mln tonnes have been sold previously by farmers, but with only 0.5 mln tonnes filed in export licences, RMI Analytics said in their latest report.

Farmer selling of feed barley sits at 1.1 mln tonnes, and is increasing in the face of Saudi demand, where cargos have shipped already and more vessels are currently in port for loading. This presence of demand has helped spark farmer selling for feed barley, along with an increase export licences filing adding life to the slow start in export shipments. In total, a combined 2.6 mln tonnes of crop’24 is sold, by farmers in malting and feed barley, leaving a further 48% to sell. Without malting barley demand there is a risk farmers may decide to sell quality malting barley into feed channels.

Argentina has announced relief to export taxes for main crops, at least until June 30th. A complication in this tax reduction is the requirement for traders to submit the reduced taxes within 15 days of filing, which is in advance of any actual loading of the associated cargo. This places the onus on traders to manage the financing of export taxes and farmer purchases.