Grain price slides on harvest outlook

UK wheat and oilseed prices continued to slide this week, with crops looking good and sterling strengthening further.

London’s November 2014 feed wheat futures market has hit a new low on an almost daily basis recently and stood at £134/t as Farmers Weekly went to press on Wednesday (2 July).

The second quarter of 2014 has seen wheat values lose 19% on the Chicago market, 15% in London and 10% in Paris.

The pound is at a six-year high against the US dollar and continues to gain against the euro, making exporting very challenging.

Markets also took a hit after the release of the US Department of Agriculture’s quarterly stock and production report late on Monday.

See also: EU becomes world’s top agricultural exporter

This showed soya plantings and stocks at higher than expected levels, while bumper yields on 
its corn crop are expected to produce a bigger harvest than in 2013 despite the planted acreage falling by 4%.

A recent International Grains Council estimate also raised expectations for global grain supply for 2014-15 by 12m tonnes, with 2m tonnes of that increase accounted for the promising outlook for EU wheat.

With ex-farm feed wheat at £120-130/t for harvest, UK growers, like many across Europe, are largely sitting tight. Feed barley is worth anything up to £20/t less than wheat, at £106-112/t for harvest.

Meanwhile milling wheat premiums continue strong, with full breadmaking specification new 
crop at £25-28/t above feed values.

Oilseed crushers are expected to open their doors within the next week or so and are anticipating plenty of competition from exporters despite the strength of sterling.

Midweek, new crop oilseed rape was worth at £238-246/t ex-farm at harvest.