Boortmalt has confirmed that approximately 10% of the Irish malting barley acreage has now been cut, with the equivalent figure for the UK being 60%.
To date, average yields have been in the region of 3t/ac, with grain quality confirmed to be good.
The poor weather of the past few days has brought most combining operations to a halt. However, this should not damage the yield potential of April sown crops, as they will not reach full maturity for another week at least.
Boortmalt’s Barley Procurement manager for UK and Ireland, Jonathan Roberts, said:
“The later sown barley crops that I have walked seem to have good yield potential, and grain quality is equally promising.
“Malting rejection rates up to this point have been extremely low. Farmgate prices are in the region of €250/t.”
Malting barley
Last year, malting barley rejection rates exceeded 50%
Roberts confirmed that Boortmalt remains committed to a significant investment programme within the Irish market.
Plans are in place to increase Bortmalt’s malting the capacity of Athy up to 200,000t per annum.
When completed, this will constitute a doubling of the site’s capacity, relative to 2010 when Boortmalt took control of the site.
The expansion planned for Athy will also be carbon neutral in terms of its environmental impact.
This will be achieved on the back of new heat pump technologies. These have been developed in-house and are now fully patented.
Roberts recognises that Irish tillage farmers have already made significant progress in lowering the carbon footprint of their businesses.
“We want to encourage the securing of increased sustainability levels within the malting sector at farm level.
“To this end we have already met with representatives of the Irish Farmers Association with additional meetings in the offing,” he said.
Roberts also confirmed the intention of Boortmalt to review all activities linked to the production of high quality malting barley crops, and this includes the future use of low-carbon fertilisers.
The feasibility of these products is already under trial within the cereal and potato sectors of many European countries.
Low-carbon footprint fertilisers are nitrate-based mineral products with exactly the same chemical and physical composition as those produced with fossil sources (natural gas, coal, oil).
However, the use of renewable electricity, produced from hydro, wind and solar sources, leads to the production of fertilisers with a much lower carbon footprint. In turn, this should leads to the significant de-carbonisation of the food sector as a whole.