Yield down for sorghum harvest, but chickpea future is bright

"While we did not really have a quality downgrade, the rain certainly impacted our yields," he said.

"This year our yield losses were 10 per cent to 15pc, along with a 20pc drop in commodity prices since planting, which negatively affected our profitability."

Despite that, Mr Ryder said the crop was still better than the previous year, which was impacted by rain.

"This year we harvested 6.5 tonne/ha, but this damage has taken the cream off the top," Mr Ryder said.

"We run a 60pc summer crop rotation of sorghum, then these fields have a long fallow until the following wheat season.

"This winter, the other 40pc of the farm we will plant wheat and chickpeas, normally it would be 20pc wheat and the other 20pc fallow but we plant the pulses as an opportunity crop.

"We have not completed planting the winter crops yet, we will put in wheat next month and chickpeas in late July."

Mr Ryder, the south east Queensland AgForce Grains representative, operates the 900 hectare property alongside his wife Jodie, and said other farmers in the region had been unable to harvest summer crops due to rain.

He said he was sure other local grain growers would consider planting chickpeas, as demand continued to rise after the announcement that India had removed its tariffs on the pulse crop until the end of March 2025.

Mr Ryder said prices in mid-May for chickpeas were sitting at about $1000 a tonne.

Mr Ryder said he enjoyed the variation farming offered.

"As we generally never spend more than a few weeks on any particular part of the operations, there's plenty of variety as a grower which is great," he said.

Mr Ryder, a fifth-generation farmer, said his family has been working an agriculture for almost 200 years.

"Our farming history on Dad's side goes back to the 1830s in Victoria near Geelong and probably involved sheep," he said.

"The Ryder Brothers business started in the 1860s with cotton production in Fiji."