Chinese ban likely to hit Australia’s barley market hard

As China effectively banned barley imports from Australia from the country’s largest grain exporter, farmers now have to sell their barley supplies to the domestic livestock industry or cheaper international markets.

“The financial hit will be enormous but we can look at domestic livestock market which doesn’t have much feed at hand after the drought,” Andrew Weidemann, a grain grower in Victoria told Reuters.

Meanwhile, China has started a second investigation into imports of Australian wine, a move that could further escalate tensions between the two nations.