SASKATOON (Staff) – The Canadian Wheat Board said last week it made its first ever sale of feed barley to South Korea, a November shipment of 50,000 tonnes through Canada’s Pacific Coast.
The price was not disclosed.
Michael Brophy, of the board’s market development department, said South Korea opened its market to barley imports only last year.
In expectation that it would, the board and the Canadian International Grains Institute had been courting South Korean buyers for several years. CIGI brought Koreans to Canada last year and this year to explain how Canadian barley can best be used in livestock rations.
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The board has also been pushing barley as part of its overall sales of wheat and malting barley to the South Koreans.
“So as the 50,000 tonne import quota became open this year, the board was in a position to capitalize on all that work we’d done on the past couple of years,” Brophy said.
In the past, South Korea had looked to corn and feed wheat to fill its needs, but that seems to be changing.
“With this sale, the Koreans have asked us to go over and make presentations to them on the proper use of barley, the optimal use of barley in livestock feeds and how to use it in combination with other ingredients,” he said.
