Barley must change itself into a feed product that creates specialized meat, rather than continue as a byproduct of the malt business, say experts.
Jim Helm of Alberta Agriculture, one of Canada’s leading barley breeders, said barley is superior to corn in many ways.
“It has a better protein amino acid balance. Hulless varieties are far better with monogastrics (single-stomached animals) … but there are ways to improve it.”
Researchers at the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan and at the Field Crop Development Centre in Lacombe, Alta., say they are well on their way to developing barley for the meat market.
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But breeders say they’ve been slowed by limited research funding and a livestock market that is forced by low margins to focus on price over feed quality.
The Crop Livestock Interface Project, or CLIP, was developed to address the issue of growing and feeding prairie grains, said Dave Christensen, the U of S professor who heads the group.
“Research into feeds like barley have often fallen through the funding cracks and we hope that by bridging the gulf between livestock producers and grain producers, and the researchers that serve their industries, that CLIP will address some of those shortfalls,” he said.
“Livestock producer groups think that funding feed grain research is funding grain farmers. Grain research groups think that funding feed research is funding animal agriculture. They need each other and that is where CLIP comes in,” Christensen said.
Vern Racz of the Prairie Feed Resource Centre said barley’s protein can be increased, but taking it from 10 to 12 percent protein would only make it competitive when feeding weaned calves.
Its feed characteristics would remain a distant second to corn for older calves and pigs, due to their inability to digest the hulls and unused protein.
“Chasing a higher protein barley in plant breeding contains no bang for your dollar,” Racz said. “We can’t increase its potential energy due to that hull.”
Another hurdle for the crop is that during digestion, barley starch degrades quickly in the stomach or rumen.
“If we could slow this process, less would be wasted, we could use more of the energy that is in barley. Combine that with a high yielding, hulless variety that had a starch that broke down more gradually. That would make it more competitive.”
Racz said new varieties with feed attributes would have to be handled differently by maltsters, but he feels there are solutions if farmers are willing to adopt identity-preserved systems for their grain.
“Like the farmer-owned inland terminals, we may need to think about smaller, farmer-member-owned specialty malting plants. Barley that fails to go malting could be fed to nearby associated feedlots.
“There needs to be more thought about how to convert as much of this crop in the West to as many dollars as possible.”
Racz said blending flax into feed to build high omega 3 fatty acid content might also improve the local product.
Low phytate or low phytic acid barley varieties are being developed to reduce the amount of phosphorus excreted through manure.
Racz said this attribute could be added to barley to make it more competitive in swine, cattle and poultry diets as governments regulate manure compounds.
Helm said the volume of Alberta barley grown as a feed will increase from the present 44 percent as the province’s silage needs grow.
“We’re told Alberta may need as much as 1.5 million acres of silage by 2005.That is a pretty big increase, maybe a third more …. We could improve some yield there and its ability to resist lodging through breeding,” he said.
“As a silage it will outproduce corn in much of Alberta, but new operators in dairy from Europe, Ontario or (British Columbia) are used to corn, so that is what they plant.”
Racz said research funding from government and industry is needed to develop the new markets and grain.
“We need to do this work now, before we find ourselves struggling even harder to compete with foreign markets,” he said.
