Scotland: Although farmers, merchants and maltsters are reluctant to comment, it seems that NFU Scotland’s campaign for a £90 per tonne minimum for malting barley this year has failed, The Scotsman reported in statement. As combines inch into spring barley in the earliest areas, such as the Black Isle, and this year’s cereal harvest, weather permitting, could be the most encouraging for several years, £85 a tonne looks nearer the mark.

The £90 or bust campaign started last autumn after the moderate yields and lowest feed barley prices for a generation of the 2002 harvest. With many malting barley contract premiums related to feed price, it meant malting top price was less than £80 per tonne. Malting barley imports did not help and protests were held at docks and the Edinburgh headquarters of Diageo, one of the main buyers for Scotland’s 750,000 tonnes of malting barley.

There are hopes of improvement this year, with a good percentage of the winter barley crop being combined much earlier than usual and a general start to the spring barley harvest, which provides most of the malt, likely by early August.

The Home Grown Cereals Authority’s latest weekly bulletin reports UK wheat prices up £4 per tonne in the past seven days, while feed winter barley is worth £60-£62 per tonne ex-farm.

Barley for November delivery is quoted at £78 per tonne

30 July, 2003