World barley production

Barley has played a major role from the era of hunting and gathering, through the transition to agriculture, up to the present era.

Barley as the fifth most productivity crop in the world today involves massive amounts of resource and people working in production agriculture, commodity transportation and trade; processing and end use product manufacture, transportation, marketing and consumption as well as research and development.

It is also the fourth most produced cereal on an approximately dry weight basis. Barley is generally planted in those areas where climatic conditions do not permit a food crop of wheat. Thus may due to lower rainfall, shorter growing season or less fertile soils.

It is estimated about 85% percent of today’s world barley production is used for feeding animals. Following the leading sector of feed barley, it is the malting industry that mainly relies on the supply of suitable charges of malting barley.

Barley is the most important of the raw materials used for beer production. Different cultivars of the spring barley with exceptionally suitably properties are used as brewing and malting barley.

The United States was the fifth largest barley producing country in 1990-1991, behind Germany, Canada and France. The countries with highest average per acre yields are in Europe, where Switzerland averaged an amazing 107+bushels/acre and Belgium-Luxembourg, Demark, France, Ireland, Netherlands and Czechoslovakia all averaged over 100 bushels/acre in 1990-1991.

Germany is the largest barley producer and it is the barley in Germany is generally categories into winter and summer barley, based on the time of sowing. In Germany, malting barley comes exclusively form summer barley crops because of its higher fermentation quality compared to winter barley.
World barley production