20
However, it should be noted that the comparisons used here preclude any significant analysis
of the impact of relative prices on the relative importance of pulse and oilseed crops. For
example, because the prices used are averages, any increase in quality or re-direction of
production from a commodity-based bulk market to a niche market approach, for example
from a feed grain market to a food grain market where higher prices can be obtained, would
similarly not be reflected here. In recent years, efforts have been made to move field peas,
faba beans, lupins (especially albus lupins) and chickpeas into more specialised quality
production, and to aim for niche markets in the food sector. At the same time, there has been a
strong movement towards the production of higher-protein wheats, especially in NSW, so that
the average price received may have been increasing more rapidly than the ASW price series
used here. On that basis, the non-niche market production of pulse crops may have received
even more rapidly declining prices in relation to wheat than is shown in these comparisons.
While human consumption prices are higher than those for feed grains, the price variation can
be greater for human consumption grains. Because of the high degree of substitutability
between feed grains (for example see Brennan, Singh and Singh 2001), there are more
alternative uses for them, and prices tend to be less variable. Niche markets, particularly those
directed at human consumption (such as that for kabuli chickpeas), can be higher priced but
highly variable from year to year. While farmers producing pulses or oilseeds for food use are
likely to receive higher prices than those producing for the stockfeed market, the greater the
diversity of marketing options available to farmers, the less variable are average prices
received likely to be.
One key component of the prices received for pulse crops is the extent to which crop losses
and marketing problems are associated with fungal diseases or from wet weather at harvest.
Research efforts are needed to reduce these losses before some of those marketing problems
can be resolved.