Aussie malt barley wins plaudits in emerging markets

Australian industry representatives, spearheaded by Grains Australia, Barley Australia and the Australian Export Grain Innovation Centre, have been busy highlighting the positives of Australian malt barley from an end use point of view and have had some positive feedback from maltsters and brewers in markets as diverse as south-east Asia and Latin America.

Last week an international delegation, hosted by European business RMI Analytics, toured key barley producing regions and malting facilities across south-eastern Australia.

The tour included time with Viterra, the major bulk handler in South Australia, one of Australia's largest barley producing states, field trips through the Wimmera, also a large malt barley growing area and time with maltster Boortmalt and agribusiness Riordan Grain in Geelong.

Maltsters and brewers from across the world praised Australia's high quality malting varieties saying they were able to achieve better functionality from the product than other barleys, meaning they could use less for the same result.

South-east Asian brewers use the malt for either standalone beers or mixed with rice adjunct to create the light, easy drinking styles popular in the region.

An emerging market for Australian barley is Latin America, which is increasingly looking at Australia as a source for its malting requirements since CBH sent its first consignment of malt barley to Mexico around the start of 2021.

Malt buyers from the region said Australian barley performed strongly in key areas such as extract levels and lower diastatic power, which meant that even with a slight premium it could be more economic to use Australian malt than product from competitors.

Due to the vagaries of international sea freight it is also possible to land barley on Mexico's Pacific Coast from Australia relatively economically although rival barley producing nations such as Argentina are far closer geographically.

Intergrain barley breeder David Moody said end use performance was a critical consideration in the breeding process.

"We obviously want varieties that perform well in the field but it is equally important to ensure the lines we put out have the end use characteristics the market wants," he said.

Simon Tickner, who farms at Wallup, north of Horsham, who hosted the RMI Analytics delegation party, said barley would continue to play an important role in rotations in his part of the world, but said premiums would be required to focus on malt rather than feed lines.

"At present we feel that higher yielding feed lines generally are our best financial bet, as if the season has been kind elsewhere come our harvest, which is later than northern areas, the premiums have generally come in to pretty negligible levels," he said.

However, he said barley was a staple of the rotation in his area, particularly in seasons where it was likely to be drier so he said malt varieties could play a role in the future.

"We love having barley, as a lower risk, lower cost crop, in our rotation so malt could definitely be part of that if the varieties are good and there is the price incentive to grow it."