A new price agreement has been announced today by the IFA malting barley committee and Boortmalt for their contracted malting barley growers.

Following recent negotiations between IFA and Boortmalt, the malting company has agreed to top up the final malting barley price paid to growers for the 2018 harvest by €30/t. There will also be a further additional payment of €10/t for distilling grade barley.

Under the new price agreement, a MATIF price of €198/t would mean a malting barley price of €228/t for brewing barley and €238/t for distilling barley.

IFA malting barley committee chair Mark Browne has acknowledged the move, saying that despite the negotiation of an improved deal in June, many growers had failed to cover production costs due to poor yields and quality issues arising from the lack of rainfall.

Due to a difficult growing season, malting barley intake has been reduced and given that feed barley had, for many weeks matched the MATIF milling wheat price. This had led to criticism from growers over the Boortmalt pricing structure.

Browne also confirmed that the committee is in the middle of negotiations for the 2019 crop, which will be concluded as soon as possible to allow growers to finalise their winter and spring crop schedules.