Published 4:00 pm Monday, December 2, 2024
In the face of an “alarming” malting barley acreage and demand downturn, the industry must tout the crop’s sustainability, an industry leader says.
Ashley McFarland, American Malting Barley Association vice president and technical director, recently spoke to farmers during the Tri-State Grain Growers Convention in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
About 1.85 million acres of barley were harvested in 2024, down from nearly 7 million in 1994. Most malting barley acres are grown under contract.
Of the three major barley-producing states, Idaho and Montana have seen relatively stable acreage over the past five years.
“North Dakota, though, is one of those ‘canary in a coal mine’ situations we’re a little worried about,” McFarland told the Capital Press. “We saw an extreme decline in acreage over 2023-2024, and across the five-year average, substantially lower volumes of barley there. And that certainly is worrisome.”
If barley acres go in North Dakota, it’s difficult to recover them as farmers turn to other crops, primarily corn and soybeans, which have such programs as sustainable aviation fuel or tax credits to bolster them she said.
Anheuser-Busch recently closed its malt facility in Moorhead, Minn., and will sell grain handling facilities in North Dakota. Farmers had struggled to secure barley contracts in that region, McFarland said.
“A lot of this is because the trend is down in drinking beer and products that require barley,” she said.
Northwest barley acres have been more sustainable than the Midwest, she said.
RollercoasterDespite a downward trend in acreage over the past three decades, genetics have provided a yield boost, increasing productivity. Yields averaged about 76.7 bushels per acre in 2024.
“The last five years of production have been a bit of a rollercoaster,” McFarland said. “We maybe didn’t have such a substantial drop in production as it felt.”
Drought in 2021 was followed by a “great” crop in 2022 and even better in 2023, then a “pretty drastic” drop in 2024.
Barley stocks, both on-farm and off-farm, are trending downward and not likely to reverse, she said.
“We’re going to be holding on to less barley, which means when we have years like 2021, we can expect to see a pretty substantial depletion of stocks, and might take some time to recoup that, just because we’re not producing as much barley,” she said.
SustainabilityOne of malting barley’s best attributes is its environmental sustainability, McFarland said.
It benefits soil health and protects water quality, at a time when beer companies, maltsters and distillers are coming under more scrutiny to report their production impacts.
The association conducted an internal survey of its membership. Respondents represented 700,000 contracted acres. About 80% were already in some sort of conservation or no-till practice and using a rotation of three or more crops, McFarland said.
Barley may have the best opportunity with or as a cover crop, she said.
“We’re competing against really large crops with a lot of power and influence,” McFarland said. “In order for us to survive, we’ve got to be nimble and thinking outside of the box to defend barley.”
