As barley crops began to grow this year Canada’s grain companies hoped to hit the export markets with strong sales of Canadian barley.

With most of the crop maturing and being harvested in Western Canada, grain companies are reeling at the chance to cut off their prime competitor, Australia, who is currently having some disputes with China since the pandemic started.

“They’re definitely bidding against us,” said Jim Beusekom, president of Market Place Commodities, about exporter demand for both malting barley and feed barley.

The dispute stems from China complaining that Australia was trying to blame it for the pandemic and threatened to cut off markets to several Australian commodities, such as barley and wine.

Since then, the flow has been shut off by an 80.5 percent import tariff, a measure the Australian government is appealing to Chinese government authorities, which is the first stage of a process that could end up at the World Trade Organization.

China has the corner on the world’s largest beer market and relies heavily on imported barley, mainly to lift the quality of its rice and non-barley-based beers. Australia is expecting a good barley crop after years of drought, so the Chinese restrictions could come to hurt severely as stockpiles build up.

Canada could be left as one of the few sources of barley for Chinese beer makers. Despite the Chinese political trade action against Canadian canola, which has greatly reduced Canadian canola exports to China, barley trade has been brisk.