USA: Malting barley losing ground in Montana

The beer business has been pretty good to Montana farmers. But despite strong payments for malt barley, the crop is losing ground, according to grain experts.

Dave Henderson, past president of the National Barley Growers Association, said demand for Montana barley has never been better, with beer and malting companies offering contracts of $13.75 to $14 a hundred weight, Billings Gazette reported on January, 9.

“They’re having to pay for it,” Henderson said of the high offers that brewers are making to keep Montana farmers in the game. “Acres are down. We’ve been declining in acres for the last 40 years.”

Wheat has been squeezing out barley for decades, but lately wheat buyers are upping their game, which has the barley industry concerned.

Led by foreign investors, wheat buyers have increased the number of million-bushel-capacity grain elevators capable of loading 100-plus car trains in a matter of hours from 12 elevators to 18 in just a few years, with one more possibly to come. Wheat farmers talk often about the expansion of planted acres needed to meet elevator demand. Conservation Reserve land has been a presumed source, but more often barley acres seem a likely target, particularly in the Golden Triangle counties north of Great Falls and also barley acres along the Hi-Line. Wheat prices aren’t bad, and the genetics of that crop are improving.

“Barley acres are decreasing tremendously, and wheat acres are increasing,” said Kim Falcon, Montana Wheat and Barley Committee executive vice president. “Part of that is because of the price of wheat, a lot of it is because of the genetics available in wheat and because of production methods.”

Barley also used to be the crop that farmers turned to for rotation. It was good alternative to wheat because it’s planted and harvested with the same equipment and gives the land a break. But farmers are being encouraged to rotate other crops into their fields, like peas that pulse nitrogen back into the soil.

In the sugar beet fields along the Yellowstone River, barley has been the rotational crop of choice. Sugar beets cannot be planted on the same ground two years in a row without wearing down the soil, so farmers have historically turned to malt barley, which when irrigated produces the kind of low-protein characteristics that keeps beer from turning cloudy.

But barley is now taking a backseat to corn on some farms. Corn yields per acre are higher and quality really isn’t a factor in the sales price of corn.

18 January, 2013