The next price offer from Boortmalt will be in the coming days, the Irish Farmers' Association’s (IFA) national malting barley meeting heard on Monday night 10 March.

At the meeting, growers vented their frustration on numerous topics and price was one of the main topics.

Growers told the room that when the company talks about sustainability that there is nothing sustainable about the previous price offer, as they face high input and land rental costs.

The €230/t offered to growers in February was criticised. The lack of a forward price in the autumn also frustrated growers.

Offer

Managing director of Boortmalt in Ireland Stuart Sands told the meeting that a price offer would be made later this week, but he could not say what that price would be.

However, he did say that he thinks that growers "can expect it to be north of €230/t" (the price offered previously).

The IFA's Kieran McEvoy said: "I'd expect if will have to be."

Sands also told the meeting that while no forward price was offered last autumn, he expects that offer will return in autumn 2025.

Sands said that beer demand had declined and noted recent news published on the whiskey industry.

Speaking on what he described as volatile markets, he said: “This year in particular there is probably a lot of uncertainty. We don’t face certainty in relation to sales."

FOB Creil price

When asked by the Irish Farmers Journal if Boortmalt would make the FOB Creil Planet price visible to growers throughout the year, Johnny Roberts of Boortmalt said that the market was not widely traded and that growers should ask merchants for an indication of where that price is trading during the season.

However, access to this price comes at significant costs and merchants have not been supplying it to farmers up to this point. Boortmalt does make the price available during the averaging season, but not outside of it.

Charge now part of pricing model

The €10/t charge on Boortmalt suppliers' harvest price will remain part of the pricing model, the meeting was told.

The charge, introduced in 2023, has been labelled as a drying, energy and logistics charge in the past, but Boortmalt’s Stuart Sands clarified that it is a parity charge.

This presumably means it is a charge to bring the price more in line with the price paid to European farmers. The Irish green price has been based on the French FOB Creil dried malting barley price, which is a dried price, since 2019. The €10/t charge has been in place since 2023.

When asked by the Irish Farmers Journal what the €1.05/t levy being charged was for, barley procurement manager Johnny Roberts said that the levy is twofold.

He said a proportion goes to the running of the joint programme with Teagasc. This programme is to restart this year. The balance goes towards food safety and glyphosate testing. The €1.05/t had previously included the IFA levy, but no longer does.

KPH

Farmers vented huge frustration at KPH deductions last season. The €25/t was described as “sore”.

One grower said they would have accepted a cut, but that the cut was too high. Former IFA grain chair Mark Browne said that the IFA and Boortmalt would have to sit down and talk about this charge.

Boortmalt’s Stuart Sands said the changes were made to help barley get over the line.

“It was done with the right intentions, received negatively, so for that we are apologising,” Sands said.

Some attendees at the meeting pointed out that some of the varieties being grown for Boortmalt are lower in KPH than newer varieties on the market, so are at a higher risk of failing.

You can read more on the meeting here.