Workers at a Foster's Queensland brewery have staged their second strike in a week over a new collective agreement dispute, AAP reported October 10.

Employees at the company's Yatala brewery, on the Gold Coast, last month voted to stage a series of four-hour work stoppages in response to the company's move to introduce a non-union collective agreement.

Their first strike last Friday included a rally in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley attended by about 500 people, though most were not Foster's employees.

Their second strike has been held from 2pm (AEST) on Wednesday.

The three unions involved in the strike - the Electrical Trades Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union and the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union - have vowed to continue stoppages in the coming weeks if no agreement with the company is reached.

Foster's has said the stoppages will not affect production but it has offered a new agreement to its 295 staff in a bid to end the dispute.

EU malt exports for the period July 01 - 25 September were 436,000 tons. At the same pace of shipments throughout the season the final number would be 1.75 million tonnes, exactly as much as in 2006/07, and a long way from former export figures up to 2.5 Mill. tons. Comparing single countries, Germany and the U.K. are ahead of last year’s malt shipments, Czech, France and Sweden well behind.

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will issue a 20 million Euro loan for Soufflet to build a malt plant in Buzau district, according to sources from the financial institution, Ziarul Financiar published October 10. The loan will be granted on Friday, October 12.

Soufflet Romania, subsidiary of French malt producer Soufflet, announced as of March 2007 a 46 mil Euro investment to build a malt plant in Buzau – its third unity on local market. The plant will start the production in fall, 2008.

Soufflet has malt plants in Pitesti and Buzau, and warehouses in Timisoara.

The company’s turnover in 2006 constituted 15.5 mil Euro.

The EU Ministers Council approved abolishment of the 10 % set-aside regulation, albeit only for one year. Nevertheless it is assumed that the dwindling food and feed supplies in the world will force the EU to scrap that restriction permanently.

The EU Commission also proposes to abolish all import quotas and import taxes on grains. At present there is still a 306.000 tons barley import quota at an import tax of EUR 16,- per ton, and a prohibitive import tax of EUR 93,- per ton on any quantity above that quota.

In 2008 the EU will perform a “health check” i.e. it will examine the effectiveness of present market rules. The Commission will suggest lower direct payments to farmers, especially large farms, the permanent abolition of set-side, of premium payments for energy plants AND of BARLEY INTERVENTION.

Industrial use of barley, for malt, ethanol etc. may still rise, but high price levels have already led to a strong reduction of barley use in the feed sector. Feed wheat is just as expensive, but replacement of barley by corn, corn gluten feed, soybean meal and manioc is reported from the EU and many countries of the world.

The IGC expects the EU to become the largest barley exporter during this crop year, with a tonnage of 4,7 Mill. tons. EU traders do not believe that such a volume will be available, there was a small carry-over, and there are no more intervention stocks. However, 1,4 Mill. tons of export licences were already booked in July/September, and there is not much competition from other barley exporters. As a matter of fact, one must wonder whether the usual 15 to 16 Mill. tons of barley can be found to satisfy world demand.

Provisional results from the DEFRA production survey put winter barley estimates at 6.2t / Ha (-8%) giving a production figure of 2.343M tonnes (-10%), HGCA has recently reported.

Spring barley yields are estimated at 5.5t / Ha (+4%) with production at 2.806M tonnes (+7%).

The total barley crop is estimated at 5.149M tonnes, down 2% on 2006.