Canada and the northern part of United States remain too dry and still look like crop risk areas in 2003. The CWB has forecast a crop of about 11 Mill. tons for the Prairie Provinces and has lowered its pool price outlook for new crop barley by Canadian $ 32,- to 36,- per ton. At present such a forecast looks overoptimistic. One of the problems for the new crop year is that there is too little good malting barley seed available. The Canadian industry is faced with other immediate problems. As there is not enough barley available, malt production will fall by at least 200.000 tons. Six-row barley, normal vomitoxin scale, is bid US $ 184 per ton, track Minneapolis. It is not yet clear if all the barley, which was harvested in poor condition and stored over winter, is good enough to make a quality malt from it. And it is not known if NAFTA supplies are sufficient for the brewing industry. Cost of energy has gone up by 50 % during the past few weeks.

The majority of the sown barleys in Canada (80% in 2002) are brewery varieties. The risks of the climate make that in general the barley share of brewery is with final much weaker (approx. 3 MT out of 13).

25 March, 2003