“The one thing that is consistent is the inconsistency.” That was a line from a grower at the Irish Farmers' Association's (IFA) national malting barley meeting on Monday night 10 March.

He continued to ask why contract cuts had not been announced in the autumn to allow for changes to cropping plans.

He said the handling of contract cuts was “messy” and “sloppy” and “doesn’t seem to be well organised”. He said that growers do not know whether to sow or not.

Managing director of Boortmalt in Ireland and the UK Stuart Sands said Boortmalt came to the market late because of volatility.

Earlier in the meeting, Sands had said: “This year in particular, there is probably a lot of uncertainty.” He added that there is volatility in the market and uncertainty in sales.

Sands said that the level of barley available to malt each year can move up and down and Boortmalt wants to bring consistency to this.

Growers acknowledged that markets were not in a good place, but the timing of cuts was not appreciated.

Another grower questioned why his contract was being cut by his local merchant, while his neighbour was being asked to grow more malting barley.

Anti-competitive

Boortmalt said it would be “anti-competitive” to talk about merchants’ contracts, but did say that the company would look at this issue and possibly bring more parity across farmers.

Over 100 growers attended the meeting in Co Carlow on Monday night.

IFA grain chair Kieran McEvoy acknowledged the effort it took growers to attend the meeting given the dry weather at present and the amount of fieldwork to be carried out.

For more, see this week's Irish Farmers Journal and online.