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Quality losses to the European and American barley crops have left the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) as the world’s dominant two-row malting barley marketer, boosting sales prices and prospects for western Canadian malting barley. The outlook for the later Australian and Argentine malting barley harvests remains uncertain.

“The CWB has taken advantage of being the only major global seller of malting barley since August 1,” said CWB Chief Operating Officer Ward Weisensel. “With certainty returned to barley marketing, we have been able to capitalize on import demand from China, the United States and other markets at a time when barley is in short supply.”

An aggressive CWB sales program into the current high world market is translating into increased returns for Prairie barley farmers.

“The prices we are asking in certain world markets are the highest that our barley marketers can remember in U.S. dollar terms,” Weisensel said. “This is an ideal situation for single-desk marketing as there are no competing sellers to push down the price, while the CWB is able to successfully price discriminate between markets in order to extract the highest return that each buyer is capable of paying for our high-quality barley. These premiums will be directly returned to Prairie farmers.” Sales of two-row malting barley made by the CWB since August 1 have averaged $325 Cdn a tonne, or more than $7 Cdn per bushel, as a landed freight-on-board (FOB) value.

Weisensel said world barley prices and the CWB’s Pool Return Outlook (PRO) for farmers will increase if dry conditions continue in Australia, further offsetting lower-value sales that were made in earlier months, mainly to domestic malting companies. However, the PRO – as a projection of average return across all markets for the entire crop year – is subject to some uncertainty, given that markets are volatile and the Canadian harvest is not yet complete. A smaller-than-expected western Canadian crop or a sudden decline in quality, if harvest weather fails, could cause the PRO to decline.

“The more malting barley we can be confident of sourcing, the more sales we can be making at the current higher values,” Weisensel said.

Controlled by western Canadian farmers, the CWB is the largest wheat and barley marketer in the world. One of Canada’s biggest exporters, the Winnipeg-based organization sells grain to over 70 countries and returns all sales revenue, less marketing costs, to farmers.

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