People working in all aspects of the barley production chain were treated to a crop tour of east central Saskatchewan on Wednesday, August 12.
The New Crop Tour, which was sponsored by the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre, brought participants east of Saskatoon to the Engelfeld, Muenster and Elstow region.
Peter Watt, Managing Director of the Centre, says the tour has been going for 10 years with the idea of bringing people together to network while seeing what crops look like heading into harvest.
"It's really great connections on this tour.” Watt said, adding that getting a first-hand look at a Canadian farm operation is a second-to-none experience for international customers, who often leave very impressed.
"“They want to talk to the producers. They want to understand how they grow malting barley in Canada. They like to see their farming operations, which is very impressive."
The attendance list included some representatives from international markets like China, the U.S., and India, as well as local reps from the Canadian barley value chain.
Cody Glenn, Chair of the Saskatchewan Barley Development Commission, says when talking to foreign buyers, the main question he gets, is whether or not his farm is sustainable.
"I always say we've been sustainable for a hundred years because if you're not sustainable, you wouldn't be farming anymore, but that would be the top question," Glenn stated.
"The second one would be the variety that you're growing and why, because you're not always growing the variety that domestic or international users want, but you're growing it because it works well on your farm."
Glenn says once customers have found a variety that they love, it is nearly impossible to get them to switch, even if it is performing better agronomically.
"We try to push newer varieties, and I mean, we don't want a new variety every two years by any means, but yeah, you have to push them in the right direction and say like, we are the guys that are growing this, so we're going to grow it or we're not going to grow it. So you're going to have to adapt to change. That's the biggest problem." he said.
Jon White a Senior Merchandiser with Bunge Canada in Regina, says the new crop tour is very important because it's "a really good chance to establish relationships…see them face-to-face, and actually know who you're working with if you haven't been to those parts of the world in the past."
White notes different customers have different requirements. China, for example, prefer a higher protein requirement of 13 per cent, while other places such as Latin America, Mexico, or Columbia prefer a lower protein requirement of around 12 per cent.
Regarding malting barley sales, White described last year as an "interesting one" in terms of the barley crop being larger than anticipated and "a lot of malting barley movement off the beginning of the harvest year."
"China was pretty aggressive in terms of what they were looking for. We saw different markets open up as well. We saw, for the first time in probably a decade, that Colombia was buying malting barley from Canada, and Mexico bought around 120,000 tons as well that typically has been traded from Australia or France." White added.
What did they see on the crop tour?
While on the tour, Glenn took note of some good-looking crops, despite the extra moisture the area saw earlier this summer.
"Their crops look pretty good to me. They've had some moisture issues like excess rain up there," Glenn said compared to Climax, Saskatchewan where he farms. "Overall I think it's going to be a fairly average crop like across the board."
From White's perspective, he recalled a conversation with a farmer who told them "he had 300 (millimetres) of rain, and most of that occurred before July 1st."
But despite the wet conditions in June then dry and hot conditions in July, White believes "we are looking at a pretty good situation for the production that we're expecting."
Watt was also on the tour and also said the crops look good, but acknowledged there are some areas that got too much moisture.
"I think it's not going to be record yields, but it'll be a good crop," Watt said. "I think, in that east-central Saskatchewan area, as long as we get clear harvest weather for the next three weeks, because things are a little bit behind."
He says too much additional moisture at this stage could lead to pre-harvest sprouting, which is very problematic for maltsters.
(With files from Neil Billinger, Keira Miller, CJWW)
