Malt Mergers

 A recent article in the Capital Press said if Idaho barley growers are concerned about recent brewing giant mergers they certainly don’t seem to be showing it. There are almost 600,000 acres of barley to be harvested in the 2009 growing season and about 450,000 of those are malt varieties. That’s only off by 2% from last year. Supposedly malt barley contract prices are down a little from last year, in part because of these mega-mergers.

 But if you talk to producer Clark Kauffman down in Filer, Idaho, he doesn’t quite see the threat: Anheusser-Bush has gotten together with a Belgian company, does that affect you guys? (Kauffman) “Well it hasn’t so far…we’re still dealing with the same people we’ve dealt with here locally. The Miller/Coors merger didn’t affect us here with the barley program at all, Bush InBev hasn’t affected us yet, it may in time, we don’t know exactly how that’s gonna work out, but Bush and Coors both have always been really good industry partners