Australia: New malting barley variety, BAUDIN in Australia has very good malt characteristics and grain accumulator, ASBULK, will pay a $5 premium over all other malting varieties at selected recieval sites this coming harvest, according to Australian farmers. Western Australian growers will be growing large areas of BAUDIN this year as it was released there last year and is being grown in preference to Gairdner malting barley so this situation should be repeated in the eastern states. “I am a farmer at Berrigan in New South Wales and am passionate about barley”, said Graeme Pyle "Rothiemay" Berrigan NSW to e-malt.com. “There is a proposal to build a 80kt per year malthouse in this area to take advantage of the reliable supply of irrigated malting barley and there are several maltsters showing strong interest with good economies in export freight, water supply, waste disposal and land being identified over other sites in Australia. It is very dry in the eastern states at the moment and farmers are worried. Lucky we are good at worrying,” added Graeme Pyle.

30 April, 2004