GIWA Chair Tress Walmsley and Executive Officer Peter Nash supported a Western Australian Government delegation to China earlier this month to help strengthen industry and government connections and explore new opportunities for Western Australian grains and grain products.
Led by the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Forestry and Small Business Jackie Jarvis MLC, the delegation included representatives from GIWA, AEGIC, InterGrain and the CBH Group. The group met with globally significant food and beverage manufacturing companies based in China, grain importers, a university with a focus on plant breeding and food safety standards, and Australian consular and trade representatives.
The delegation met with ABInBev, one of the largest brewers in the world, to strengthen connections with Western Australia’s largest barley market. Sustainability and achieving optimal results from WA grown malt barley were among the topics discussed. Australian grains are highly regarded in China, with barley the largest export. In 2023, following the removal of tariffs, nearly 3 million tonnes of barley worth $1.2 billion was exported from Australia to China, with more than half from WA (source: ABS). Chinese customers prefer Australian barley because of its high quality and excellent performance for brewing, malting and feed.
In China, there is significant interest in the benefits of increased oat consumption and the delegation visited PepsiCo’s product research and development facility. Topics discussed included Chinese consumer preferences, sustainability, new product development, and opportunities for new oat based products. PepsiCo’s Quakers oat mill in Forrestfield processes WA grown oats for inclusion in PepsiCo’s product lines across Asia.
The delegation also included a visit to the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences to discuss agricultural research in China, in particular barley breeding, and to strengthen and invite further collaboration between the WA grains industry and the Chinese scientific community.
“China is one of WA’s most important markets for grain, especially now that the barley trade has resumed” said Peter Nash, GIWA Executive Officer. “GIWA participated in the WA Government’s delegation to China to contribute to the bilateral discussions, promote WA grain exports, and gain firsthand market intelligence.
“From a GIWA perspective, some key takeaways from the visit are that demand for oats is growing in China and WA grown oats are preferred because of their high quality and they are sun-ripened, unlike other origins that are of inferior quality, or which chemically desiccate their oats to ripen them. It is also clear that there is growing demand for Australian canola oil and canola grain in China, but blackleg (a fungal disease) related restrictions on the export of canola grain to China currently make this difficult.
“Also of interest is that while Australian grain supply chains are being asked by our customers to account for and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help them meet their emissions targets, it appears that the Chinese domestic grain industry may not be subject to these same expectations.”