In This Issue:

• Barley Acres Up 14%
• Barley Priorities Fare Well in House and Senate Agriculture Appropriations Proposals
• Thanks to All for a Productive NBGA Meeting

Barley Acres Up 14%

On June 30^th the USDA National Ag Statistics Service (NASS) released the planted acreage report. Barley: Producers seeded 3.36 million acres of barley for the 2023 crop year, up 14 percent from the previous year. Harvested area, forecast at 2.53 million acres, is up 4 percent from 2022. Nationwide, 92 percent of the barley acreage was sown by June 4, two percentage points ahead of last year but 3 percentage points behind the 5-year average. Twenty-one percent of the Nation’s barley acreage had reached the headed stage by June 25, four percentage points ahead of last year but 5 percentage points behind the 5-year average. On June 25, forty-six percent of the Nation’s barley acreage was rated in good to excellent condition, 7 percentage points below the same time last year.

The full report including state by state barley acreage can be viewed here: Acreage 06/30/2023 (cornell.edu)

Barley Priorities Fare Well in House and Senate Agriculture Appropriations Proposals

In late June the House and Senate Appropriations Committees rolled out their respective versions of the Fiscal Yer 2024 Agriculture Appropriations bills. Both versions maintain full funding ($15 million) for the Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative and provide a $1 million increase in funding for the Barley Pest Initiative, from $3 million to $4 million. These funding levels for the barley research priorities are significant considering the overall FY2024 agriculture appropriations are held level in the Senate version and reduced by one-third in the House proposal relative to the previous year. The bills will continue to work through the full House and Senate and hopefully will be enacted later this year. 

Thanks to All for a Productive NBGA Meeting



Thanks to everyone that attended the NBGA meeting in St. Louis. For those that were not able to attend, highlights of the meeting included a discussion of Farm Bill priorities and dynamics of Reference Prices under the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program, a joint session with the American Malting Barley Association with a panel and robust discussion on sustainability issues, updates on crop insurance and pet food, craft beer and export markets and fun stuff like baseball games and brewery tours. Congratulations to Chris Engelstad of Minnesota and Mitch Konen of Montana who were elected to serve as President and Vice President of NBGA and many thanks to Greg Kessel who moves to the role of Immediate Past President following two-terms as President.