PIGEON breeding and racing in China has proven an unlikely market for Australian field peas, with exports of the pulse increasing to previous levels late in 2020 and early this year.
According to Pulse Australia, which pulls its figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, from the beginning of October last year to end of January this year, a total of 26,819 tonnes of field peas were exported from Australia.
That is more than double what was exported the four months previously, with only 10,500t exported from June to September 2020.
The amount is closer to levels from October 2019 to January 2020, when 27,799t was exported.
Esperance Quality Grains is a small cleaning and drying business that moved into exporting in May 2018 and which, for the past two years, has mainly been shipping pulses out of the Esperance port.
Owner Neil Wandel said a vessel arrived at the port once a month and the company exported beans, lentils and just recently, some oats as well, however it's peas that are the surprising story.
"Last year, because of the drought on the east coast, the prices were too expensive for our export markets so it dropped off a bit, although we did move a fair bit into Malaysia," Mr Wandel said.
"However this year, our Chinese customers have come back quite strongly and peas have increased in value a fair bit.
"We've been paying up to $370 a tonne for peas, the market started out at closer to $340/t, but that has lifted quite a bit and we're sending pretty significant tonnages - it's often 250t/month and sometimes up to 350t/month going into that market."
Mr Wandel said he had a couple of loyal customers in China who were using the peas for the pigeon breeding or racing industry.
"They were the very first customers we ever worked with and we have a very good relationship with them," he said.
"But even in Australia we're finding it's a little niche market for the right type of pea - we moved peas to Queensland a couple of months ago and there are a couple of little markets in Perth, so the bird seed market is a surprisingly big one for us."
Those purchasing the peas for the pigeon industry, especially the Chinese buyers, are very particular and quality driven, so the product has to be incredibly pure to fit into the market.
While Chinese buyers typically get their white field peas from Canada, it is predominantly dun or kaspa types peas, which is a brown type, that they are importing from Australia.
Exports of the pulse have undoubtedly increased over the past few months and Mr Wandel doesn't see it slowing down any time soon.
"I think all the field peas stock in Australia will be sold by September, they certainly are moving," he said.
"Malaysia and Sri Lanka are taking a few and there are other ports in China that some packers in Australia are sending to.
"The only thing that's really slow to move for us is faba beans, they have been very hard to sell."