Arable farmers who committed feed wheat into merchants’ pools this harvest received up to £119/t for their grain, a better price than many who sold wheat off the combine this harvest.

While futures prices soared this summer, wet weather caused severe quality problems for many growers and meant that the few farmers who had not sold significant tonnages forward struggled to catch the market’s highs.

Co-operative Centaur Grain achieved an average price for feed wheat of £118.16/t in its harvest pool, plus a £4/t premium for soft wheats.

“This demonstrates that pool marketing has been proven against the market’s performance."

Sales and marketing director Richard Jenner reckoned Centaur’s pool results had out-performed farmers spot-selling who managed £103/t ex-farm, he estimated. Almost half of the 75,000t of wheat in Centaur’s harvest pool achieved milling quality, he added.

“This demonstrates that pool marketing has been proven against the market’s performance. It’s been a very risky year in terms of price and having committed some tonnage to pools can be a valuable tool.”

Meanwhile, Gleadell Agriculture’s harvest wheat pool returned an average of £119.54/t. Managing director David Sheppard said the firm’s 2008 pool had opened and he expected a brisk uptake.

“In order to beat it, farmers would have had to sell all their wheat after 1 August.

“In their own right farmers have been keen sellers of wheat from below £80/t up to today’s prices. In this context the Gleadell pool has performed excellently. Premiums returned for all grades of biscuit and bread making wheat are against the high end of what has been available on the open market. This result re-in forces the fact that a good pool should form tan important part of most farmers’ marketing strategy.

Jon Duffy, trading director at Frontier , said that while it was difficult to compare merchants’ pools on a like-for-like basis, pools had achieved significantly better than many farmers had managed on the spot market. “After commission, our harvest wheat pool would have returned from £110-£140/t for al grades of wheat.”