With lower quality and three to four times higher price than those of imported malting barley, the competitiveness of domestic malting barley is decreasing. Although the causes can be found in that the domestic environments are much unfavorable to cultivate the malting barley compared with those of USA or Canada, it is mainly reasoned from poorer developments in variety of high quality malting barley as well as in cultivation technology. For assuring the competitiveness of domestic malting barley, therefore, not only the development of high quality malting barley suitable to the climatic environment of this country but also the political supports of the government are required. Also, in addition to the breeding of the good quality malting barley haying higher germinative energy, and heavier and larger kernels of good plumpness as well as lower protein content, the modification of quality inspection standards from the system relying only on the visual characteristics such as kernel size distribution rate, shrimped kernel rate, foreign materials and so on, to such system as those of developed countries haying quality criteria such as protein content for inspection is absolutely required for the quality improvement of domestic malting barley.
