Optimism in the Barley Market

[charliep]

Barley is a crop that has opportunity to be interesting in the coming months - even on the malt side.

[URL="http://www.farmandranchguide.com/articles/2010/07/03/ag_news/markets/market13.txt"]US barley quality[/URL]

Just curious in what is happening on the malt barley front. Are any of the maltsters offering cashplus contracts? General idea of price levels?

[charliep]

I have to express frustration here. The idea of cashplus was at least to provide some level of price transparency. Don't expect the maltsters/exporters to be in the market everyday but there should be at least some level of price indication on business. The selectors and the CWB seem to be some kind of sweetheart deal that allows cherry picking as to when business can be transacted. It likely hides the fact there are two distinct markets - a low priced world market dominated by European pricing (that may change) and a North American price. The CWB purists will argue that ability to price differentiate between these two distinct markets results in higher payments. I don't know if malt barley growers are well served by this slight of hand in the pooling black box or a lack of use of the cashplus program. The latter makes the pricing process (with the parameters of the program) more visible.

Which brings me back to my original. If I were to do malt barley pricing today, what would the bid side be on cashplus?

[wd9]

Charlie, it is so hard to determine today what a good price is for cash plus. I'm not afraid to say no idea what to do.

[charliep]

An email indicated a recent cashplus price of close to $4/bu. 2 row I
suspect. No information on quality specifications. The PRO is under
$3/bu elevator/maltster plus whatever else you can negotiate in trucking
premiums, low protein extra, VIP, etc

[vvalk]

Was offered $3.91 del for feb to apr delivery with not storage payment. I declined

[charliep]

Just curious whether included an act of god clause or whether you carried the weather risk?