EU & UK: Barley crop forecast reduced on ongoing drought problems in Spain

Barley production forecast for 2023/23 has been reduced due to the ongoing problems in Spain, RMI Analytics said in their latest report.

The severe drought in Spain is reducing the barley crop forecast by about 5 mln tonnes and will trigger imports of malting barley of 400-500 thousand tonnes for crop 2023, the analysts believe. The impact is a crop size of 56.96 mln tonnes, down from 58.88 mln forecast in early May. The decrease follows a slight improvement in France production forecast, nevertheless.

Most of Europe’s barley crop is developing very well, including Russia. Spain has a problem, as outlined above, and Ukraine continues to be impacted by the ongoing war. The French winter crop is nearly fully developed to the point of an assured result, while spring barley still needs 4-6 weeks of good growing conditions, including some light rain to continue near perfect conditions, the RMI analysts said.

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 .