(Commodity News Service Canada) — A report expecting global demand for beer to increase by nearly five per cent over the next five years is seen as good news for malt barley producers across Prairies.
Rod Green, manager of Central Ag Marketing at Airdrie, Alta., said the bulk of the demand for beer right now comes from Asia.
“We’ve come out of a slump where the world demand for beer has dropped by as much as five per cent, but right now China is the shining star. Their demand continues to rise,” Green said.
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Beer demand had slowed because of the global recession, as well as a number of countries implementing a significant tax increase on beer sales, he said.
Bob Cuthbert, with the Canadian Wheat Board in Winnipeg, said Canada’s newest importer for malt barley is Vietnam, and the spike in beer demand will increase the world’s need for Canada’s malt barley.
“We’re shipping about 10,000 tonnes per year into there (Vietnam). We expect it to grow; they suffered a significant setback with the recession, but they are recovering.”
With the very wet growing season across the Prairies this year, there was less malt barley available than usual, and of the barley that did grade as malt, the quality was lower than normal.
“It looks to be one of the lowest malting rates in quite some time. It wasn’t a good year on that front,” Cuthbert said.
It’s important that poorer quality barley is not taken with more needed to meet the demand for beer, Green said.
“The quality of the beer is affected by the quality of the barley, so it’s very important to maintain the quality of the malt barley,” he said.
“Big competition”
Both Green and Cuthbert are hopeful the report will persuade more farmers to seed barley.
“Barley acres continue to decline, and malting barley stocks are going to be pretty tight in the coming year,” Cuthbert said.
“It’s a big competition for acres out there. It’s (barley) up against canola, wheat and other crops in Western Canada,” Green commented. “It’s all about rotations. Producers are likely to plant the most acres of one crop that will bring them the most return.”
While Canada did not have a particularly successful barley crop, the same cannot be said for Australia. Early reports are for 8.3 million tonnes to come, and indications are that the crop quality will be very good as well.
