Chickpea Start Year Unchanged

VANCOUVER - Jan 6/06 - SNS -- Chickpea markets were little during the past week, unaffected by harvest selling pressure from Australia.

This reflects the fact international supplies of this commodity are tight and no significant change is expected until this year's harvest in Mexico and Turkey.

The USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation office sets prices to be used by country offices for determining marketing loan repayment rates. The price for small chickpeas was up 10 cents at U.S. $6.55 per 100 pounds for 2005 crop product.

The Loan Deficiency Payment (LDP) for the week was set at $0.88 based on a loan rate of $7.43 for 2005 crop product.

As of January 3, growers have placed no 2005 crop product under loan, compared to 1.11 million pounds in 2004-05 and 200,000 pounds in 2003-04. They have requested a total of $174,050 in LDPs covering 10.37 million pounds. Growers in Idaho have requested LDP payments of $110,790 on 6.605 million pounds, versus $54,630 on 3.252 million pounds in Montana; $180 on 11,000 pounds in Nebraska; $5,790 on 344,000 pounds in South Dakota; and $2,660 on 158,000 pounds in Washington.