A simpler, more flexible grading system for malting barley could be in place next crop year.
There is widespread agreement among all sides in the malting barley industry to replace the three existing malting barley grades with a single one.
Malting barley can be graded as special select, select or standard select. Under the proposed change, barley would be graded either feed or select. A formal name for the new grade has yet to be determined.
A number of details remain to be worked out, such as whether to differentiate between two-row and six-row barley, and legislative changes could be required.
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The target date for the new system to go into effect is next crop year.
“If everything happens that needs to happen, we’re looking at Aug. 1, 2008,” said Norm Woodbeck, manager of quality assurance standards for the Canadian Grain Commission.
“It’s a much more flexible system and that’s good for the whole industry,” he added.
Industry officials say the grading system has become irrelevant, because maltsters and exporters select their barley on the basis of specifications, not grade.
“There was no need for (the three grades) because maltsters in almost all cases order their malt barley according to the particular specs they have,” said Brian Otto, a barley grower from Warner, Alta., and a director of the Alberta Barley Commission. “They pay very little attention to the grading standards.”
Each malting company has unique requirements for malting barley depending on what its customers want. In addition, most of the export cargoes go out on the basis of specs, not the CGC grade.
The new select grade will include maximum tolerances for extreme factors such as frost, fusarium, heat damage, ergot, severe mildew and excreta.
Once the barley has been graded as malting quality, buyers will negotiate premiums or discounts based on other factors like plumpness, protein or germination, which won’t be part of the formal grade definition.
“This will give producers better signals as to what kind of barley they’re looking for and frees up the malting industry to say ‘this is what I need for my customers,’ ” said Otto, a member of the committee that recommended the change. “It’s a good change.”
The change has widespread support from producer groups, maltsters, grain companies, the grain commission and the Canadian Wheat Board, which have been working together on the issue through a special committee.
Bob Cuthbert, the wheat board’s senior marketing manager for barley, said the marketing agency supports the proposed change.
“The CGC primary grades haven’t been all that relevant,” he said. “They’re a means to pay the producer but it’s not being sold to buyers on the basis of those grades.”
Bob Sutton, vice-president of sales and logistics for Rahr Malting Co. of Alix, Alta., said the three grades mean absolutely nothing to the industry.
Different malting companies have separate and distinct requirements and, he said, and even within each company specifications differ among customers.
“I haven’t heard of anyone that wants to keep the current system,” he said.
