No decisions have been made in relation to barley contract cuts, Jonathan Roberts of Boortmalt said on Wednesday.

“We are aware, I think everybody is aware, of the concerns with the distilling demand and the distilling sector within Ireland,” he said.

“We are still in assessing mode, trying to work out what it all means, and there have been no decisions made”.

Roberts was speaking at a Boortmalt event relating to their regenerative programme in Wexford. On Tuesday evening, the Irish Farmers Journal reported that Boortmalt had shared planned cuts to malting barley contracts to their supplying merchants and the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA).

This is just as farmers have purchased and applied all inputs for the season.

The understanding emerging is that Boortmalt wants little or no distilling barley this season.

This could equate to a cut in contracts of about 20%. Boortmalt already made cuts to contracts earlier this year, with contracted tonnage per hectare of barley grown varying among the merchants who now assemble for Boortmalt.

Contracts

The IFA’s malting barley committee met on Monday 16 June, following the meeting with Boortmalt earlier that day.

IFA grain chair Kieran McEvoy described cutting distilling or malting barley contracts in the middle of the growing season as “totally unacceptable”.

“Malting barley growers have already taken pain earlier this spring with the implementation of contract cuts,” said McEvoy.

“After this, farmers planted specific quantities of distilling/malting barley in good faith,” McEvoy said.

“Now Boortmalt want to ignore their contract with merchants and farmers after they have planted the crops.

“Distilling/malting barley has to be grown to very exacting specifications which adds to production costs.

“In return, growers expect a premium price for their product but now Boortmalt wants to unilaterally ignore their own contracts,” he added.

‘Crops were sown in good faith’

The IFA believes a unilateral contract cut would be in breach of the Unfair Trading Practices legislation. McEvoy said IFA will “use all means available at its disposal to ensure that Boortmalt honours all existing agreements and contracts in full”.

“An alternative solution to slashing contracts long after crops were sown in good faith by farmer suppliers needs to be found,” said Irish Grain Growers chair James Kelly, suggesting, if necessary, to cut distilling contract 2026 having accepted all contracted barley this harvest.

In sharp contrast to Boortmalt, both Dairygold and Tirlán, joint owners of the Malting Company of Ireland, stated in March that there would be no cuts to contracts this season to provide consistency to growers.