Barley

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Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) ranks fourth among the cereals in worldwide production and is grown annually on 48 million hectares in a wide range of environments. In some developing countries, barley is mostly grown by resource-poor farmers in marginal environments, receiving modest or no inputs.

Barley in the field (Photo: ICARDA)
Barley in the field (Photo: ICARDA)

Origin and use

Barley was one of the first domesticated cereals, most likely originating in the Fertile Crescent area of the Near East. Many references to barley and beer are found in early Egyptian and Sumerian writings that are more than 5,000 years old. In Iran, archaeological evidence of barley cultivation has been found dating back 10,000 years.

Barley grain is used as animal feed, malt and human food. Barley straw is used as animal feed, for animal bedding and for roofing huts. After harvesting, the stubble is grazed in many developing countries. Barley is also used for green grazing or is cut before maturity and either directly fed to animals or used for silage. In the highlands of Tibet, Nepal, Ethiopia, Eritrea, in the Andean countries, and in North Africa, barley is an important food source.

Malt is the second largest use of barley, and malting barley is an important cash crop for resource-poor farmers in a number of developing countries. The most popular use for malt is in the production of alcoholic beverages, but malt and malt extracts are becoming increasingly important in the bakery and baby food industries.

Production

Annual world production of barley has fallen over the past 30 years by about 20% to 123 million metric tons in 2010. Production in Germany, the largest producer in 2010 with 13 million metric tons also fell by a similar amount over this period. However, production increased in some developing countries. Turkey, the largest developing country producer in both 1980 and 2010, increased production from 1980 by 35% to 7.2 million metric tons in 2010. Production also increased in Morocco (+16%), Ethiopia (+33%), Iran (+137%), Argentina (+1307%), Algeria (+89%), and Iraq (+67%) over that period, but was static in India and Tunisia and decreased in Syria (-57%).

Nutrition

Barley contains about 75% carbohydrate, 9% protein and 2% fat. In energy terms, each gram provides about 3.3 calories. Barley grain is rich in zinc (up to 50 ppm), iron (up to 60 ppm) and soluble fibers, and has a higher content of Vitamins A and E than other major cereals.

During the last decade there has been increasing interest in barley to improve human health, mainly in industrialized countries and major urban areas of developing countries. This is boosting barley food-products and consumer interest in such products. The effectiveness of barley beta-glucans in lowering blood cholesterol and barley’s low glycemic index in diets for people with Type II diabetes are widely accepted. Barley is a rich source of tocols, which are known to be capable of reducing serum LDL cholesterol through their antioxidant action. Barley bran flour accelerates gastrointestinal transit time, and is therefore said to reduce the incidence of colon cancer. In North and East Africa, producing and marketing such processed foods is becoming a common source of income for women.

Impact of CGIAR Centers

In 1984, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and its Syrian partners initiated a collaborative policy-oriented research project designed to assess the profitability of fertilizer use in barley production and to provide evidence to inform the government’s fertilizer allocation policy. The returns to the project are substantial. Increased investments in marginal dry areas, in the form of increased fertilizer allocations, have led to increased yields and farm incomes, and enhanced farm feed security. This has raised the incomes of some of Syria’s poorest people.

Participatory plant breeding (PPB) offers resource-poor farmers the chance to decide which varieties best suit their needs and conditions without risking their livelihoods. Research in Jordan and Syria calculated market-level benefits. In Jordan, the gross economic benefits (GEB) accruing to society by adopting participatory varieties were calculated to be US$1.79 million, while those derived from adopting conventional varieties were US$6.13 million. Even though it had higher GEB, conventional breeding was less efficient than PPB because of the high research expenditure associated with it (US$2.27 million) compared with PPB (US$0.475 million). In Syria, the GEB accruing to society by adopting participatory varieties were calculated to be US$110.6 million, while those derived from adopting conventional varieties were lower, at US$77.6 million.

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