December 20, 2021

December 2021 eNewsletter

After almost eight years with SaskBarley, this role continues to be diverse and challenging. And this year was no exception. But overall, I have observed that we are moving in the right direction – building a strong future for the barley industry.

And the highlights from this past year certainly confirm that.

From an operational and administrative perspective, there were many highlights. From helping create and grow the Canadian Barley Research Coalition, to adding Mitchell Japp to our staff as Research and Extension Manager, to overseeing a reorganization/evolution of the Barley Council of Canada, this past year has been a busy one for us.

It was also a good year for SaskBarley research. We issued our own call for research, resulting in us investing $1 million in research for the next five years, and we also spent 77% of our expenses last year on research activities.Another major highlight was learning that, for every $1 that Saskatchewan farmers invest in barley research, another $26 is returned to them through increased yields. This information came as the culmination of a study we commissioned from Dr. Richard Gray at the University of Saskatchewan. Finally, this past year we saw major uptick in the use of many of the new malting varieties developed with your check-off dollars. AAC Connect, CDC Bow and CDC Fraser are increasingly being used by domestic malting companies and are also being accepted by many international customers.

You can see an overview of all this good news, and all the updates from the past year, in our annual report, now available on our website.

Finally, I hope we’ll see you at our AGM January 11, either in person or online. We are following all the government protocols for in-person meetings and are taking every precaution to make things as safe as possible. Register now.

In closing, 2021 has been a challenging year on many fronts but we appreciate your continued support of SaskBarley. I want to wish you all a safe and joyful holiday season and brighter year in 2022.

Jill McDonald
Executive Director
SaskBarley

Read this month’s eNewsletter articles by navigating the links below!