Tins of chickpeas may be collecting dust on pantry shelves across the country, but the humble legume is putting Australia on the world map.
Key points:
- The Australian chickpea industry wants to expand its production
- It is looking at expanding snack food production domestically and offshore
- Chickpeas are known as a drought-hardy crop because they can grow without irrigation
According to a recent United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) report, Australia is the largest exporter of chickpeas, producing about one third of global exports over the past 10 years.
Despite this record, the industry is pushing for more international market access, and wants more Australians to eat chickpeas.
“They’re exceptionally healthy, they’re low GI [glycaemic index], high fibre, and really dense protein,” Grains Australia Pulse Council (GAPC) chairperson Peter Wilson said.
He said popularity was increasing, with food manufacturers making dips such as hummus and pulse pastas domestically.
“It is a growing market but it’s relatively small,” Mr Wilson said.
Australia grows two varieties of chickpeas — the desi chickpea, which is primarily exported, and the kabuli chickpea, which is typically the tinned chickpea consumers buy in supermarkets.
Growing market access
Australia may be the world’s largest exporter of chickpeas but the country that grows the biggest volume is India, which is also the world’s largest consumer of chickpeas.
Until 2017, Australian exporters enjoyed unfettered access to the Indian market, a trade the USDA valued at more than US$1.1 billion.
But that year India introduced tariffs to limit imports, effectively killing the trade.
It was a big hit to the industry.
After growing more than 2 million tonnes of the crop in 2017, Australia’s 2023 crop sits at just under 500,000 tonnes.
Australia’s biggest markets are now Bangladesh, Pakistan and Jebel Ali in the Middle East, where some chickpeas get further transported to Iran.
Mr Wilson said GAPC’s market access work was aimed at getting more Australian-grown chickpeas into snack foods and manufactured products domestically and offshore.
He said even the free trade agreement signed with India did not lift the tariffs on chickpeas but the industry was continuing to work with its Indian counterparts.
India was facing pressure on agricultural production from urbanisation due to population growth and Mr Wilson said that could be a key to getting chickpeas back into India.
“They were by far and away the largest destination mark of Australian desi chickpeas,” he said.
Drought-hardy crop
Chickpeas are grown right across the country from Queensland to South and Western Australia, with the bulk of the crop grown north of Dubbo in New South Wales.
They were first introduced to Australia in Goondiwindi in southern Queensland during the 1970s and have since picked up in popularity.
Raymond Wilkie grows chickpeas at his property near Biloela in central Queensland, choosing them for a variety of reasons, including their reputation as a drought-hardy crop.
Like most farmers, he grows them dryland, meaning they are not irrigated.
If growers have limited soil moisture, they can plant a chickpea crop 250 millimetres into the ground, while most other crops cannot establish from that far down.
“Chickpeas are a really good candidate for being able to plant deep and chase the moisture,” Mr Wilkie said.
From planting in early May to harvest in October, Mr Wilkie’s crop of chickpeas only received 55mm of rain but he was happy with the result.
They will be sent to Gladstone for export to Bangladesh and Pakistan later this year.
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