12-12 IAN Barley News

  I had a chat with Kelly Olson the other day.  Kelly is administrator of the Idaho Barley Commission.Give me some barley news. “2012 wasn’t the best year for Idaho barley but it was a good crop overall.  Acres were up 18%, production was up 15% with state wide yield down slightly from the year before because we did encounter some challenging production conditions in certain parts of the state. Too wet, too cool in far North Idaho where barley is grown and very dry in Eastern Idaho which does not  irrigate. So we did experience some difficult growing conditions so I would say, David, that growers are glad to have crop out of the field and are anticipating another good year. Price was strong. We had good strong pricing signals from our barley industry very early. A year ago they indicated that they needed a lot more bushels and they were willing to pay for it. We are seeing the same thing going into the 2013 crop. Most of the malting companies have contracts offered out and the price signals are very strong. We aren’t looking to increase bushels so much but just to lock in pretty much the production they had for 2012. I think growers overall feel pretty positive about that.