STATE OF THE CROP: MACROECONOMIC OVERVIEW OF THE BARLEY MARKET

Over the past two years, our industry has navigated what were previously unimaginable challenges – we’ve weathered a global pandemic, supply chain disruptions and challenging harvest seasons. Today, the geopolitical conflict in Ukraine is further exacerbating market volatility, destabilizing economies, driving inflation, and impacting transportation and fuel costs.

Ukraine and Russia

Ukraine and Russia export 30 percent of the world’s wheat and 32 percent of the world’s barley (primarily feed barley). While Country Malt Group doesn’t procure barley from Russia or Ukraine, the conflict in Ukraine will have an impact on barley availability and pricing worldwide. This impact will be driven by several outcomes of the conflict including the continued isolation of Russian goods being exported, the increased likelihood of no crop being planted in Ukraine, and the subtraction of Ukrainian and Russian originated fertilizer supply to the world (roughly 25 percent of world’s supply).

In addition to the impacts of the conflict in Ukraine, North America is still recovering from last year’s severe drought conditions. To date, we have yet to see the precipitation required to replenish sub soil moistures, mountain snowpack, and refill our reservoir systems. Lastly, due to the reduced yield of last year’s North American crop, we continue to have little to no buffer inventories capable of mitigating any shortfalls of the 2022 crop harvest.

The benefit of working with Country Malt Group is that we’re part of the United Malt Group family of brands, which gives us the power of scale to work with farmers across the globe to secure barley supply. 

Similar to how we handled the 2021 crop, we’ll be able to source barley from other parts of the world, if necessary.

We’re here to help with ways to minimize the impact to your business. Contact your Country Malt Group sales representative today!