Grain bull run continues, but pooling still pays dividends

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So the bull run continues, with feed wheat quoted at £113/t ex-farm for February when Farmers Weekly went to press on Wednesday, up another £5 on the week.

That is fully £30/t more than in October 2008, rewarding those who decided to sit tight rather than panic-sell post harvest.

money + grain.JPGWhat is most encouraging is that this week's rally seems to have come about without the help of currency.

Sterling was more or less static against the euro in the first part of the week, at about €1.06, compared with its record low point of €1.02 at the start of the year. It then strengthened a bit further, reaching €1.08 on Thursday morning.

Despite this, grain prices have climbed over the past seven days, to some extent following an upturn in Chicago, but also driven by the presence of boats for loading at UK ports.

Whether the bull run continues, time will tell.

Mind you, not everyone will be regretting having sold earlier in the season - growers who committed some or all of their grain to the Gleadell's grain pool, for example.

 

Results out this week show that the company achieved an average return of £129/t for Oct Nov Dec wheat, way above the spot market average for that period.

A back of fag packet calculation (actually, I gave up at Christmas) suggests that a farmer committing 300t to that pool would have made £38,700. A farmer selling 100t in each of Oct, Nov and Dec on a spot basis, would have got just £25,600.

Not surprising then that the company reports a significant increase in the tonnage being committed to its 2009 pools.

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Philip Clarke published on January 29, 2009 3:52 PM.

Milk price cuts cannot be justified was the previous entry in this blog.

Beef sector braced for bite of recession is the next entry in this blog.

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