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JANUARY 27, 2005 Improving Marketing Options for Barley Growers Winnipeg, MB - January 27, 2005 - The Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council (MRAC) recently approved nearly $30,000 to fund a Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre project aimed at finding possible solutions for DON-infected barley and malt. Deoxynivalenol (DON), a nasty vomitoxin, robs farmers of yield and grain grade, and shuts them out of markets as end users don't have a use for infected grain. It is estimated these losses cost Manitoba farmers $50-100 million per year in barley and wheat quantity and quality. "In many cases, farmers are losing out on selling their barley for malting, and therefore a premium price, solely because of fusarium head blight and DON. Regardless of other quality characteristics, their barley will be rejected because of the presence of DON," explains Rob McCaig, Managing Director of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre. "If we could clean DON-infested barley and remove the vomitoxin, not only could farmers sell their barley for malting but they may also be able to more easily sell into the feed market as a secondary market." Fusarium head blight infection ultimately leads to the development of mycotoxins on the seed, including the vomitoxin DON, rendering the barley unsuitable for malting purposes even at extremely low levels. Losing malting quality means Manitoba would be shut out of up to a half a million tonnes worth of malt exports to the U.S. per year. What's more, animals will not eat infected barley, further eliminating farmer's options for marketing their FHB-affected barley crop. The occurrence of FHB, rampant in Manitoba, threatens farmers' returns and the collapse of that export market unless a solution to the presence of vomitoxin in the barley crop can be found. This MRAC-funded project will look at three treatments, all unique to what's currently used within the malting industry. "We want to answer two questions with this project; do these processes work and, if so, do they have any negative impacts on the end quality of the malt or the economics of malt production? If it doesn't make sense economically or if the malt is substandard, it just won't become adopted practice," McCaig says. He explains that the feed market, which struggles to blend high-DON infested feed barley with clean batches, would benefit from these treatments as well, and that the benefits are not limited to barley. "Essentially, these treatments could translate to any crop type susceptible to fusarium head blight," he says. The Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre's project was approved in the final round of CARD II project approvals, fully expending the last of the CARD II funds. MRAC has since approved its first two projects under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Advancing Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food (ACAAF) program. MRAC is a not-for-profit organization that provides funding for innovative and sustainable agricultural projects to advance the agriculture and agri-food industry in Manitoba. Administrator of both the CARD I and CARD II program, MRAC has been selected to administer Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s $10.3 million Advancing Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food (ACAAF) program in Manitoba. To learn more about MRAC please visit our web site at www.mrac.ca.
For more information contact: Rob McCaig, Lyndsey Smith,
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