There should be no more room for confusion about quality standards for malting barley.
As of Aug. 1, the official grade specifications for Special Select and Select barley will be changed to reflect more closely the quality factors being demanded by selectors and consumers of malting barley.
“What’s it doing is bringing the official grade tolerances into line with what is actual market practice,” said Michael Brophy, manager of barley market development for the Canadian Wheat Board.
Malting barley is already being selected and marketed at the tighter specifications, he said, so the official grade standards weren’t being used anyway.
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The disparity between what was going on in the marketplace and the official grading standards sometimes left farmers and customers confused.
“There would be cases where the barley was rejected and the farmer would say ‘why? it meets all the specs’, ” said Len Seguin, chief inspector with the Canadian Grain Commission. “This will send a more direct message to the producer that this is what the marketplace wants.”
The changes come after about a year of discussion, involving grain companies, maltsters, the wheat board, the grain commission and producers.
“It’s certainly a step in the right direction and probably long overdue,” said Jack Tye, manager of quality control for Manitoba Pool Elevators, who added that grades should reflect the qualities demanded by end users.
Good for growers
Ted Cawkwell, a farmer from Nut Mountain, Sask., and a member of the western grain standards committee which recommended the change, said growers should support the tighter specifications.
Canada has to compete in world malting barley markets on the basis of quality, he said, and higher standards can only help.
“We, as farmers, lose if customers don’t get the best product they can get,” he said. “Australia has a superior product and the only way to compete with a superior product is to make yours better yourself.”
The changes, which will be phased in over the next two crop years, will see reductions in the allowable level of foreign material, less tolerance for peeled and broken kernels and stricter requirements on plump and thin kernels. The new standards apply equally to two-row and six-row varieties.
Brophy said he hopes the change encourages producers to adjust their farm management practices to produce top quality malting barley. That in turn will help the board and others competing for exports.
“Growers will see what’s required by the marketplace and in the long term that’s good,” he said. “It will help us to select more and better quality.”
The commission also announced it is creating a new grade called Standard Select, which will include barley that is selected for malting but does not meet all the specifications for the two top grades.
It will replace a plethora of grades that had been lumped together under the term Sample Select, which categorized barley according to specific traits like thin, frost damaged, sprouted and peeled and broken.
Industry officials say that should make life easier for grain handling companies and streamline the system.
Other changes
The malting barley change was one of four grading changes announced by the grain commission.
The others were:
- The allowable level of foreign material in general purpose barley delivered to primary elevators will be the same as for export grades, at 2.5 percent for No. 1 Canada Western barley.
Also, the Extra No. 1 CW grade has been eliminated.
- The requirement for 35 percent hard vitreous kernels in No. 1 CW red winter wheat has been removed. Lack of HVK will no longer be sufficient reason to downgrade No. 1 to feed quality.
- Red lentils will have the same specifications as green lentils, except for staining, which is not an issue with red lentils.
