Sky-high barley prices are making Canada continue to buy U.S. corn to feed its cows.
According to Bloomberg, the price of the grain used to feed cows has dramatically increased due to pent-up demand, driving cattle ranchers to turn to U.S. corn as a less pricey 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 Canada to become one of the biggest buyers of corn from the U.S. Midwest.
It’s more expensive to get a load of barley from the Canadian Prairies than to buy corn from Minnesota or the Dakotas, Jacob Bueckert, chair of the Alberta Cattle Feeders’ Association, told Bloomberg.
According to the USDA, Canada will import as much as 3 million metric tons of U.S. corn this crop season.
