Farmers Weekly is launching a new blog, designed to provide readers with news and views from the world of agri-business.

Called Phil Clarke’s Business Blog it aims to keep farmers up to speed with key business developments and provide a perspective on what’s going on beyond the farmgate.

“Be it changes in commodity markets, movements in exchange rates, corporate news or international trade policy, we’ll be keeping tabs on it, providing a rapid assessment of what it all means for farmers,” says Farmers Weekly’s economics and world editor Philip Clarke.

The first entry goes live today (Friday) and asks why grain traders are always so gloomy?

Last October the view in the trade was that wheat prices, which had already slumped to £83/t post-harvest, would continue to slide and farmers were advised to sell a sizeable chunk of their harvest before things got worse.

Since then, prices have climbed almost weekly, reaching £107/t ex-farm this week, driven by weaker sterling and other global factors.

True to form, however, grain traders still maintain “there is more downside to this market than upside” and farmers should not count on higher prices prevailing. Sounds like a familiar refrain.