Desi chickpeas are indicated at US$311.50 delivered packer Saskatchewan. Extrapolating this from a packer price somewhere in central Canada to a delivered Indian price and then back to a delivered NNSW packer or ex farm LPP value starts to contain a lot of assumptions.
There are a raft of costs that are hard to determine. Varying freight costs throughout the Canadian season is one example. Unlike here in NNSW, Saskatchewan has a winter that can change freight costs to port, freight often going higher as winter sets in. If we assume that other costs are similar to that of Australia in AUD/t we can come up with a rough estimate. But keep in mind there are some big assumptions in these calculations.
After going through the exercise the comparable price ex farm LPP comes in at something like AUD$580 to AUD$600 / tonne. I can’t emphasise enough how rubbery this number is. This compares to a local price of something closer to $490 XF LPP.
Last night the Delhi mandi price for chickpeas ranged between 5809 Rs/Q and 6106Rs/Q, closing at 5958RS/Q. The closing value is equivalent to roughly AUD$1040 / tonne. Converting this Delhi number to a rough XF LPP or delivered local packer number also tells us that there is potentially still a significant amount of trade margin in local bids. The question we need to ask is “is this justified”, is there still that much risk to the trade.
Indian values have bounced along between the MSP (minimum support price) and about 6300Rs/Q since sowing here. That’s a range of about AUD$114/t. During the same time frame Aussie bids have moved AUD$200.00/t. The attached chart showing the rough correlation between the local and Delhi values.
The crystal ball is always a little foggy with the pulse market, kind of a brown fog. There has been a lot of speculation in the market in regards to two things. Initially the expectation that the Indian government would implement some kind of import duty as they have done in the past in order to lift domestic values did weigh on the market. The second speculative factor that is now likely to influence price is the fruition of the cliche that low price fix low prices. The punters expect to see Indian chickpea sowings reduced as prices are too low. The Indian gov did not lift 2025-26 MSP, nor have they implemented a tariff…yet