In 2011, there were 470 operational craft breweries in the North Central Region.  By 2017 that number had increased to 1,490. Craft breweries want to source local ingredients including malting barley grain. Furthermore, a malting facility is slated for construction in Ohio that will directly contract grain from producers in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.

In 2017, a survey was distributed to current and future malting barley producers. Malting barley production is risky, as it requires careful management to maximize yield while maintaining quality. Contracts, insurance, and financial planning help minimize marketing and financial risks. 62% of the respondents indicated that there were insufficient resources available to minimize the risks associated with malting barley production.

In order to reduce financial risk, OSU Extension educators worked with local barley producers to benchmark actual production costs.  In a series of face-to-face meetings, growers shared their yields and costs to develop the following budgets:

• enterprise budget for malting barley production.


• enterprise budget for double crop soybeans following barley.

Enterprise budgets were developed by the following methodology:

• Adaptation of OSU Extension Wheat Production and Double Crop Soybean Budgets


• Reviewed nearby states malting barley budgets


• Gathered current growers’ barley cost of production and yield data


• Met with producers face to face meeting to analyze budgets and benchmark costs.

Impact- Enterprise budgets were developed and shared with current and potential growers.  Budgets published online at  https://farmoffice.osu.edu/home website.  Producers can utilize the malting barley and double crop soybean enterprise budgets to implement sound financial planning for their farming operation to increase profitability.