SWIFT CURRENT, Sask. – In the malting barley game, the dice are loaded against producers, some claim.
“The whole system is in favor of the (malting) companies,” Brownlee farmer Rob Pottruff said during a coffee break at a Canadian Wheat Board district meeting here. “There’s no cards left in the hands of producers any more.”
He and other malting barley producers complained to board officials that producers take all the risks and pay the price for a system which often leaves malting barley sitting in rail cars for months. The barley’s germination level is then reduced and maltsters can refuse to accept it.
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“We’re the only ones who lose,” Pottruff said. “If they have delays getting it, if they take time getting it there, it’s not their worry because if it’s not to their standards they’ll just reject it.”
But wheat board commissioner Ken Beswick said he thought the system was fair.
Farmers want to sell their crops quickly, but maltsters want to receive the barley as late as possible, Beswick said.
And while farmers want their barley accepted on a broad range of quality, maltsters are fussy and accept only a narrow range.
“It’s very difficult to get a delivery process for malting barley that takes into consideration all the needs of farmers and all the needs of the person who buys the product,” he said.
Most of the onus for the barley’s condition is on the producer until the maltster accepts it at unload. This is fair to producers because Canadian buyers pay a premium for good malting barley, Beswick said.
“For the right to be so picky, the right to select from all the barley grown in Western Canada,” they pay more than the going world price, he said. If the barley arriving at their plant is not precisely to specifications, they will reject it, Beswick said.
Another producer at the meeting said it is unfair for farmers to have their barley quality accepted at the shipping point only to discover months later that it was below standard following germination tests.
Beswick said germination tests are not usually done at delivery. Many types of malting barley do not mature until after they are harvested, so a germination test would be useless. Selectors use visual tests when they originally accept the barley.
Pottruff said producers should be given a 30-day guarantee on delivered malting barley. If it isn’t delivered within that time and its quality is damaged by further storage, the producer should be compensated.
Beswick said there have not been many cars of malting barley rejected this year. Of 12,000 rail cars, only 49 have been turned back, he said.
