Canada’s Cows Binge on US Corn as Homegrown Barley Feed Gets Too Steep

Sky-high barley prices are turning Canada’s rare buying-spree of US corn into a habit.

The price of the grain used to feed cows has soared due to pent-up demand, driving cattle ranchers to turn to US corn as a cheaper substitute to domestic barley. The shift comes one year after a severe drought withered Canadian grain supplies, spurring a switch in trade flows that led the northern neighbor to become one of the biggest buyers of corn from the US Midwest.

“We need corn to fill the hole,” said Jacob Bueckert, chair of the Alberta Cattle Feeders’ Association.

It’s more expensive to get a load of barley from the Canadian Prairies than to buy corn from Minnesota or the Dakotas, Bueckert said. A shortage of truckers in Canada is also adding to the cost of shipping grain domestically, he said.

Barley prices in parts of Canada have soared 30% since August and are trading near the record highs of 2021 when the nation’s harvest was the second-smallest since 1967.

Canada will import as much as 3 million metric tons of US corn this crop season, said Jerry Klassen, market analyst and commodity trader at Resilient Capital in Winnipeg, Manitoba. That’s the second largest amount since 2008, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture. Exporters sold 48,000 tons of American corn to Canada in the most recent reporting week, USDA data show, the biggest corn sale to Canada since February and a signal that deals could start ramping up.

Tags: barley, prices, Canada, USA, compound feed