EU & UK: Barley crop forecast revised slightly lower due to unfavourable weather

As barley harvest advances across Europe, the weather has not been ideal as rains covered most of the norther continent. While rain at this stage will not impact yield, it leaves open quality risk. Lower yields have resulted from the hot weather over the past month in central & eastern Europe. RMI Analytics’ EU barley crop forecast is revised slightly lower (-0.2 mln tonnes), to 58.1 mln due to the reduced yield potential in many regions, the analysts said in their latest report last week.

In France, 2RS harvest has confirmed lower yields, lower test weights, and a range of proteins (10.5-12.0%). As the French 2RS harvest concludes, a difficult growing season is drawing to a close with disappointing yields and likely low proteins to deal with.

The UK winter barley result is good overall but with lower protein levels; spring harvest is about to ramp up with an average result expected.

With Denmark/Sweden and Germany proceeding without issue, Europe should have a sufficient supply from crop’24, RMI experts believe.

E-malt.com, the global information source for the brewing and malting industry professionals. The bi-weekly E-malt.com Newsletters feature latest industry news, statistics in graphs and tables, world barley and malt prices, and other relevant information. Click here to get full access to E-malt.com. If you are a Castle Malting client, you can get free access to E-malt.com website and publications. Contact us for more information at marketing@castlemalting.com .