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Barley: Entrenched in slow motion

November 10, 2017 at 1:18 PM , Starry Night Ltd.
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SOFIA. Slower on the export fronts. Lower sowed acreages expected this year.

BULGARIA. Closing harvest campaign 2017-18, farmers combined 135,796 ha of barley fields. The country’s aggregate output from the recent season reached 620,496 mt, which is by 13.6% lower than output 2016, according to local authorities.

By the 2nd of November 2017, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, estimates of sowed acreages of the grain reached 90,123 ha, which on a year-to-year basis lag behind by 12.2%. Barley is clearly going out of favor with local farmers, who seem to allocate more arable land for the cultivation of more profitable agricultural products such as rapeseed and wheat. There is no doubt about the reasons behind this strategic move since the latter two grains command a higher margin; after all, on an annual basis, wheat and rapeseed record strong foreign demands.

Barley: Internal market division on consumption basis

Domestically, the grain is mainly used for the feed industry, as usually the high quality characteristics of the crop, which happens to be the case this season, and competitive prices drive local demand.  In addition, barley is used for malt in the beer production sector. According to local authorities, by the end of the last marketing season (30th of June 2017), barley used for feed in the animal sector reached 209,800 mt while that for malt purposes came to 77,100 mt. On a weekly basis, local consumption goes by several metric tons.

Harvest 2017-18

(01.07.2017 - 03.11.2017)

          units in MT

Beg. availability, incl. carry over & imports

655,640

Domestic consumption

108,000

   beer production

27,000

   feed

81,000

Exports to the world

239,049

   to EU markets

221,832

   to rest of the world

17,217

Source: Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture

Slow motion on the export fronts

Exports started strong very early in the marketing season, but once the local mass buying campaign ended, and exporters fulfilled their initial contracts, the rate of sent shipments abroad drastically slowed down. EU markets receive the largest volumes of shipments annually, with Spain usually leading as a final export destination.

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