Grain Producers Australia (GPA), Media Release, 19 May 2025
Grain Producers Australia (GPA) has welcomed news about malting barley market diversification and growth opportunities in Australian export trade into Latin America.
An article published today highlighted recent market diversification and growth activity, with benefits for Australian grain producers and broader industry, while boosting national economic prosperity.
GPA Chair, Barry Large, said these shared outcomes and benefits – from paddock to pint – reflected GPA’s long-standing policy and strategies on export market development and growth; especially the consolidation of ‘industry good’ functions.
“This is refreshing news and shows there’s tremendous appetite and future opportunities for Latin American consumers to taste better beers, brewed with high quality Australian barley,” Mr Large said.
Today’s news article included comments from GPA Southern Grower Director and RD&E Spokesperson, Andrew Weidemann AM, saying this market diversification and expansion of malting barley trade into Latin America was a great success story for the Australian grains supply chain.
‘Firstly, credit has to go to the Australian breeders for developing varieties that fulfill the needs of customers,’ Mr Weidemann said. Here
‘Secondly, organisations such as AEGIC and Grains Australia, with their technical information and market development work, have done a fantastic job in highlighting to customers in Mexico the advantages of using Australian malt barley varieties.
‘Lastly, our growers are producing a quality, low-moisture product that is what the customers want.
‘It is a great story of the industry as a whole working together and a great advertisement for the use of Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) levies to help fund Grains Australia and AEGIC.
‘In general we’re probably more used to competing with Latin America, with countries like Argentina and Brazil big grain exporters, than sending grain there.
‘We’ve had our presence through the Middle East and Asia for so long but this is the first meaningful trade I can remember of any grain commodity into Latin America.’
Figures from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry here show Australian barley exports to Latin America grew by +416 per cent in real terms, to reach A$256.1 million in 2022–23 (ABS 2023). This was attributed to record production and redirection of barley exports from China.
In 2022–23, Mexico accounted for 77pc of the value of Australian barley exported to Latin America. And, Mexico has become the world’s fourth largest beer producer and the world’s largest beer exporter following the outstanding growth of its beer industry over the last decade.
Increased trade and grain market access was again one of GPA’s policy priorities, advocated for, at the recent Federal Election. Here
*Advocate appropriate resources for Grains Australia, to advance the consolidation of industry good functions; especially to support technical expertise needed, to maintain and improve grain market access. Especially pre-competitive functions with in-market advocacy and engagement, to support removal of market access barriers.
*Continue to advocate support for current and future projects and initiatives, relevant to GPA’s legislated responsibilities, which seek to optimise the use and strategic investment potential of funding enabled by grower levies – including strengthening biosecurity protections and emergency response/preventative capacity, growing grain market access, RD&E programs, supply chain efficiencies, product integrity, MRLs etc.
GPA also recognises investments such as Grain Australia’s joint project with AEGIC here on developing barley market intelligence for Central and Latin America. This pre-competitive work is also complemented by in-market delegations to Mexico, Peru, Chile, and Brazil, to identify customer preferences and grow demand for Australian grain exports. HERE
