Boortmalt may have upped its forward malting barley price to €240/t, but this is still well below the €300/t demanded at the recent growers’ meeting, hosted by the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) in Carlow town.

Given the chasm that now exists between farmers and the malting operation, surely it’s time to call in the agri-food regulator.

At the very least, taking this approach will help bring more transparency to the matter at hand.

For the record, all the parties involved here are Ireland-centred: the growers; Boortmalt along with the other malsters operating in the country; the merchants that procure the malting barley off-farm; the brewers; and last but not least, the drinks’ trade.

All these players have real skin in the game. Moreover, surely it’s the job of the agri-food regulator to ascertain if real transparency does exist within the malting chain from farm to the final pint of beer.

Both the previous Irish government and the IFA lauded the establishment of the agri-food regulator’s office as a tremendous step forward in safeguarding the prices received by primary producers.

On that basis alone, getting to the bottom of the malting barley price debacle would seem to be the perfect job for the new agency to get its teeth into.

My impression of the Boortmalt presentation to the Carlow meeting was akin to a group of people dancing on a pin head.

Seemingly, the management team at the Athy-based operation recognise the iconic value of Ireland’s drinks brands.

But, at the same time, they are very keen to tell Irish barley growers that malt should be regarded as nothing more than an internationally-traded commodity.

A fundamental flaw in Boortmalt’s approach to growers over recent moths was the failure of the business to communicate with growers last autumn. Admittedly, this point was alluded to by the Boortmalt team in attendance at the Carlow meeting.

The reality remains, however, that beans are now a real driver when it comes to combinable spring crops that are grown in Ireland.

And to be quite frank, this is the target that Boortmalt will have to beat by some margin, if it wants to do real business with tillage farmers in the future.

A case in point is the fact that the Irish government shows no sign of reducing its support for the Protein Aid Scheme.

Meanwhile, IFA representatives remain of the view that Boortmalt is sticking to a strategic pricing mechanism for malting barley grown in Ireland.

To be honest, I saw little evidence of this principle coming to the fore, given the tenor of the debate held at the Carlow meeting.

However, one point that did come over very clearly was that of the Boortmalt management team’s commitment to deliver a return on investment for farmer-shareholders back in France.

Yes, it all seems like a job for the agri-food regulator to me.