Argentina is becoming the main malting barley supplier in the world (2013-03-26)

Over the past three years Argentina has become one of the main malting barley suppliers in the world having put competitive pressure on traditional countries – Australia and Canada.

During 2011-2012 crop years the external market was supplied with over 3.6 million tons of barley and the plan for 2012-2013 is to exceed the level of 4 million tons.

One can envy the colleagues from Argentina, who managed to achieve such a fantastic figure. For reference: in 2009-2010 crop years the export was about 500.000 tons. The detailed information on Argentina barley exports can be found on BMBU website (available for BMBU members).

The big question now is: how large and how good or bad is the Argentinean barley crop, an industry report said earlier this month. There are reports of good quality shipments, but also news of poor malt qualities from that country. One sign of doubtful supplies and qualities is the fact that Brazil/Uruguay recently purchased 60,000 tons of French and 30,000 tons of Australian barley. A rather sudden demand for more malt supplies from South American countries may also be caused by a lack of good supplies from Argentina, analysts point out. Latest private crop estimates were 4.6 – 4.8 mln tons with an uncertain share of top and medium quality malting barley. Although availabilities of feed and malting barley should be exhausted by now, there are still nominal FOB quotes at US$ 300 – for feed and US$ 360 – for malting barley. Severe loading delays in Mercosur ports have caused major changes in shipment programs since a few weeks, it is reported.

Time will tell whether Russia can establish export deliveries, and our joint work on implementation of the Beijing Program will also contribute to this.

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