The supply chain, our relationship with the farmers and our old friend- uk weather – are all points that Robin Appel, the director of Warminster Maltings , argues we must pay careful heed to in 2025 and beyond.
Spring has been “bustin’ out all over!” to quote those famous words of Oscar Hammerstein. The sun came out in the third week of February, and in the South of England, at least, it has almost been wall-to-wall sunshine ever since.
Farmers were very quickly out in their fields, comfortably sowing all their Spring barley within the critical window of 15th February to 15th March.
With no frosts to speak of, barley seedlings were soon poking their heads out after 7-8 days, and have been romping away ever since.
What a contrast to last year when incessant rain delayed sowing until the end of April. The point is that this year our barley crops just might enjoy a full and timely growing cycle, and the chance to really optimize both yield and quality.
Now, at the time of writing, we are into May, and still “the sun has got his hat on”, and farmers have begun to get concerned. Farmers always pray for rains in May, the last ‘top up’ of moisture before the high summer sets in. I am less concerned.
Over my 50 years or so of crop walking alongside farmers, it is my observation that there is absolutely no substitute for sunshine.
Provided the root system has it’s toes in moisture, photosynthesis drives plant metabolism from dawn to dusk, and within our barley crops, peak performance in this department optimises ear formation and the number of grain sites per ear.
Not only this, when it comes to cereal growing, sunshine is natures disinfectant. Most of the foliar diseases of barley crops are wet weather induced, and our Spring barleys have already outpaced some of their early and worst potential pathogens.
Net Blotch and Rhyncosporium spatter their damage at the seedling to early stem extension growth stage, and our barleys are already striding past that, a spectrum of lush and green.
So what could possibly go wrong? If we get no rain to speak of until mid to late June, grain size will be impaired, and even some grain sites abhorted.
But probably the worst scenario would be the arrival of heavy rains as harvest begins. So let’s not speculate on either of these outcomes at this stage.
However, a bumper crop of barley this harvest is not necessarily going to be any sort of bonanza for farmers, I’m afraid.
The malt market has quite definitely slowed down, both for brewing and distilling. And not just in this country. My agent in North America reports a downturn of between 15 and 20%. That’s huge!
That is not quite my experience at Warminster Maltings, but our brewing customers are definitely not taking quite as much malt as they have been. We all know why, of course. So no maltster is going to be chasing barley markets this summer, or perhaps want to pay the sort of premiums that some farmers have come to expect.
But herein lies a potential problem another day. If farmers cannot earn a reasonable premium for malting barley, they will simply cease to plant it. They do not have to grow barley. Even within their “regenerative farming” policy, which depends on crop rotations (and preferably a livestock enterprise), there is still a wide choice of other crops they can select.
Most ominous amongst these are the particularly lucrative contracts for maize, for biomass production. Farmers do not have to grow food!
This is precisely why, for most of my career in the grain trade, I have been a strong advocate of properly managed supply chains. I am talking about both farmers and first processors in constructive dialogue to ensure continuity of production, both weathering the storms of oversupply, and protecting against shortfalls another year.
Over time, maltsters, and flour millers, have always been keen on these initiatives, but mostly to incentivise the production of preferred varieties of barley, or wheat. Latterly, some maltsters have recognised the virtue of these schemes to protect overall supply. But, for the most part, brewers themselves are less engaged. Time for change I suggest.
I am not advocating that brewers should start talking to farmers, we would need to bring back the Corn Exchanges to facilitate that.
But I do think that brewers should double check that their maltster has a sustainable barley supply chain, one that is on message to farmers to do their very best to maintain both quantity and quality of the right varieties.
And it is time for brewers to underwrite these arrangements, even if it means paying up for them.
Farmers are feeling overlooked at present. Their banners, strung up on field gates proclaiming “No Farmers, No Food!”, expresses their frustration. If we end up with pubs with no beer, we will all be joining in with their protest!
