Ritter: Participating in "grand political manoeuvres" is not the route the CWB is planning to take .

[LWeber]

That worked ..for a micro-second:

Canadian maltsters have lost business to competitors because the Canadian Wheat Board has refused to sell new-crop malting barley due to an impasse over a new pricing program, an industry spokesman said on Tuesday.

The farmer-run CWB, which has a monopoly on sales of the crop from Western Canada, will not forward-sell barley to maltsters beyond July 31, 2008 unless maltsters agree to a program which they have flatly rejected, said Phil de Kemp, president of the Malting Industry Association of Canada.

"We are paying a price for that, and quite frankly so are farmers, because we've lost those opportunities," said de Kemp, declining to comment on what volume of sales had been lost, citing commercial reasons.

[charliep]

Will note there is excess malting capacity in North America so breweries (including Canadian ones) can source their supplies elsewhere. Statistics Canada numbers show declining domestic malt barley use (beers we drink) which reflects trends to lower consumption and very high likelihood malt product from outside Canada is being used in our local beers. In the malt business, snooze and you loose.

[silverback]

How much malt barley normally gets imported into Canada? Is it up this year?

[parsley]

From Government of Canada website:

"Imports of barley and malting barley are subject to tariff rate quotas (TRQ).
A lower tariff is applied to imports that come into Canada up to a certain quota level and a much higher tariff is applied to imports entering after the quota is filled.

Among grain products, TRQs apply only to wheat and barley - they do not apply to corn, oats, rye and other grains. The TRQ for barley is 399,000 tonnes and the TRQ for barley products is 19,131 tonnes.

Imports under the barley TRQ fluctuate significantly every year but have never reached the maximum volume. The barley products TRQ has been completely filled since 2005.

As a result, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has been issuing supplementary import permits under the barley products TRQ."

[parsley]

From Government of Canada's "Export and Import Controls" page:

8.0 Supplementary Commercial Imports

8.1 The Minister may issue permits for imports at "within access commitment" rates of duty after the applicable import access quantity has been reached.

Request for such supplementary permits may be addressed to Mr. Bernard Paré at the address below.

In deciding whether or not to issue a supplementary permit for a given product, the Minister will consider, in particular, the availability of like or directly substitutable products on the Canadian market.

8.2 When requesting a supplementary import permit, applicants should provide a detailed description of the product requested and its purpose.

Importers should also provide details of efforts made in securing domestic sources of supply.

Such information should include the name(s) and address(es) of supplier(s) contacted, the response received as to their supply capacity and any other evidence that may have been provided indicating an inability to supply.

8.3 Supplementary Feed Grain Imports:

Feed grain users in the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, the Yukon and Northwest Territories, who benefitted from a feed grain assistance subsidy under the previous Feed Freight Assistance Program, will be eligible for supplemental import permits to import feed wheat and feed barley if they can demonstrate that they are not able to source Canadian supplies that are price competitive with imports. Requests for supplemental import permits can normally be processed within three working days.

9.0 Export licence requirements

9.1 Export licence requirements for wheat and wheat products under the Canadian Wheat Board Act will remain in effect and are not affected by this initiative. For further information please contact the Canadian Wheat Board at (204) 983-3569/Fax (204) 983-1869.