One of the important reasons for the collapse of prices for malting barley this year is that the volume of malting barley traded in open markets is much lower than the quantity, which is needed by the industry. As is well-known, monopolies by boards still exist in Canada and large parts of Australia. In Europe there are many partner- and ownerships between malting industries and farmer-shareholders, cooperatives and merchants. It is estimated that 50 % of the German malting barley deliveries are traded as pre-contracts long before harvest. In France upto 70 % of the deliveries by farmers are handled as frame contracts with regular price fixations throughout the grain year.

27 May, 2003