Australia: Barley crop continues to benefit from highly favourable weather conditions

Weather conditions continue to be highly favourable for the development of Australia’s barley crop’25 with significant rainfall occurring in crucial areas and a positive forecast ahead. For the second consecutive year, ABARES (government agency) has announced a substantial late season increase in production, now projected at 14.6 mln tonnes for crop’25, RMI Analytics said in their early September report.

This clearly indicates that the crop is thriving, leading RMI to raise their estimate by 0.7 mln to 14.0 mln tonnes. This production level is the fourth highest of all-time following the amazing results during the period 2020-2022.

Farmers are making final fertilizer applications (urea) to push yields and proteins, as conditions remain good and more rain in the forecast. The increase in supply is expected to raise domestic usage and export volumes due to greater availability.

Under the vastly improved crop situation and higher production, Australian barley prices have moved sharply lower as a consequence. After a very strong start to 2025 shipments, Chinese exports have slowed in recent months, and with a 14 mln tonnes + crop likely a continuation of these volumes will be critical. Reportedly, approximately 750k tons of new crop barley is already on the books for China which would help maintain a brisk export pipeline.