Suppliers of Stradbally Town and Country were adamant at a meeting on Wednesday night 28 January that they will continue to deliver malting barley to the grain intake in the middle of Stradbally town in Co Laois which first opened in 1873.

Those growers, which the meeting described as the last traditional growers of malting barley in the country, had learned the week previous that Boortmalt had cut their contract with Stradbally Town and Country.

Half of the 200 affected farmers were present in Portlaoise and Laois Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) chair Henry Burns said there is huge loyalty to Stradbally Town and Country.

ADVERTISEMENT

As the meeting went on, this loyalty was clear. Growers were united and want the branch to remain an intake for Boortmalt and the IFA is to return to Boortmalt to try to make this happen.

It was also said that growers in the room will not take up a contract with another merchant and it is too late in the year to be served notice of a contract cut when cropping plans have been made.

Another intake

National grain chair John Murphy told the meeting that Boortmalt had informed him that they will honour growers’ contracts at another intake. He said: “Every grower will have an opportunity to grow malt.”

No tonnage was disclosed.

Attendees questioned the revelation, as it suggested that the Stradbally contract had been taken away and given to another business. There were questions around fair trading, competition and data sharing.

It was also made clear that it is not as simple as moving from one merchant to another. Firstly, there was no desire to move to another merchant among the crowd, but secondly, over 60% of the growers are smaller farmers, the traditional malting barley suppliers.

They operate off the combine, delivering straight to the intake and have no facilities to store barley. They cannot practically or viably draw to a location further away.

Another attendee commented that if the contract is there for Stradbally suppliers, then the aim has to be to get that barley back to Stradbally.

Sustainability

Many in the room referred to talk of soil sampling, sustainability programmes and malting barley awards at Boortmalt and Guinness and noted that there was nothing sustainable about the current set-up.

There were other comments in the room that if Stradbally’s contracts can be cut, then any merchant’s contract can be cut, which is not a sustainable business model.

Huge investment is being made by merchants to meet standards for malting barley and those agreements appeared to the crowd to be in a constant state of uncertainty.