The Alberta Barley Commission wants a better set of graduated barley standards to ensure growers get paid for quality
Requests for a better grading system have been before the Canadian Grain Commission for nearly a decade but so far no changes have been made.
“The barley commission has been working at this since 1992 and we don’t seem to be getting very far,” said barley grower Don Cox.
“If you are in this wide range of bushel rate, the person in the layer below gets blended up and you never get the value,” he said.
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“We want these grids tighter.”
During the barley commission’s annual meeting, growers complained that grade categories are too broad and do not recognize quality characteristics important to end users.
They also feel broad categories allow grain companies to blend and gain the benefit.
Clifton Foster, general manager of the barley commission, said these grades relate to export barley, not feedlot grain.
“The grid system provides a much more accurate measure of the feed value or malt value of the barley that is being assessed and gives the producer a marketing tool,” he said.
“It is not something to be imposed on the system as it is an evaluation system that can be used by the system,” said Foster.
Major cattle feeders like Western Feedlots already use a grid system to check barley weight, plumpness, number of thin kernels and other feed quality attributes. If it does not measure up, the load could be rejected.
“The technology is available today to do the analysis that would provide the farmers with the tools to market their grain to the final use,” said Foster.
“The buyers of barley would want to buy on that basis because it gives them a much more accurate measure of what they are buying,” he said.
Foster said the Canadian Wheat Board is also pushing for a more technically advanced grading system for malting barley.
