With the Canadian Wheat Board losing its monopoly, Canadian farmers are looking for new export opportunities…and Asia looks to be a big beneficiary. By Leo Quigley, AJOT Canada is the world’s second-largest exporter of malt barley, with export sales averaging 500,000 tonnes annually and the majority going through the West Coast ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, primarily to Asian markets. However, with the de-monopolization of the Canadian Wheat Board and a move to marketing freedom for barley producers that will be switched on north of the border August 1, 2012, all of this is about to change. Given the ability to market their own wheat and barley, Canadian farmers are already finding new markets and new export opportunities for their barley crops that will mean larger acreages of barley and, given the fact that the most significant new markets are in Asia, increased business for Canada’s West Coast ports. One of these early changes will be the creation of a proposed new classification for Canadian barley that will be inserted between the premium malting barley classification, used mainly for beer making, and feed barley, used mainly for feeding livestock. According to industry sources barley that would fall into this new grade, to be called “fair average quality,” is in demand by breweries in Asia that have long been supplied by Australian barley growers, but is a market that has never been developed by the Canadian Wheat Board. And, while the “fair average quality,” may appear to be a lesser grade than premium malting barley this not, necessarily, the case. Doug Robertson, Vice President of Canada’s largest barley producer association, the Western Barley Growers, told AJOT premium barley with a high protein content that falls outside the malting barley grade could also be included in the Fair Average classification. Once the new grade is in place it will draw some barley out of the feed barley supply, but Robertson is of the opinion that increased feed barley plantings by farmers will fill the demand for export animal feed which, together with the demands of the biofuels industry, is a market sector that in itself is growing. Logistically, the new Fair Average grade will increase the movement of barley to inland terminals in Western Canada and then to export terminals or transload facilities to be loaded into containers. John DePape, Consultant, who studied the opportunities that could result from the Fair Average grade, said many of the customers in China prefer smaller, container-sized quantities of malting barley rather than large, bulk volumes. For example, to meet the demand for containers filled with grain, including malt barley, Canada’s largest railway, Canadian National, has located a Grain Distribution Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, that the railroad describes as a “state-of-the-art container transload facility that handles specialty grain exports to Asia.” As well, the railway has also located a grain transload operation in Chicago permitting efficient containerization of grains for export and a new intermodal terminal at Chippawa Falls, Minnesota, that opened February 3, 2012 and offers the Minneapolis - St Paul region access to an export facility for both grain and manufactured goods. At the official opening of the Chippawa terminal Jean-Jacques Ruest, CN executive vice-president and chief marketing officer, said the new terminal offers twice weekly train service with fifth morning availability from the West Coast for intermodal containers as well as a 2,500-ft. intermodal loading and unloading track with an onsite grain transfer facility. At the official opening Gov. Scott Walker said agriculture and manufacturing are key components of the state’s economic success and the new CN terminal in the Chippawa Valley will be an important asset for local exports. Brian Otto, President of the Western Barley Growers Association, told AJOT the new Fair Average grade will be: “better for the whole industry. In fact, it creates more competition in my industry and, j