Countries Point Fingers as Malting Barley Prices Slip

[MLamirandeRM]

Australia and Canada are blaming each other for the slip in malting barley prices. Australian grain handler AWB lowered its price forecasts due to Canadian malt barley sold in markets “where they have a freight advantage over Australian malt barley”. However the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) said that Australian merchants such as AWB “which have begun to aggressively market in anticipation of a large, good-quality malting barley crop” are destabilizing the market. AWB cut it’s forecast by AUS$13/tonne and the CWB cut it’s malting barley forecast by CAD$70/tonne in the past month. The real threat to the industry could in fact be Argentina, which is expected to have a record harvest of 3.3 mmt. Overall barley shipments by the country are forecasted to jump 25% to 2.0 mmt, higher than the 1.80 mmt projected for Canada.

Michelle Farms.com Risk Management

[furrowtickler]

A true monopoly at work .. nice!! I'll cut my price further cause no one else in Canada can sell malt barley...

[charliep]

Always frustrated when I see statements like this and I don't know the actual price of malt barley. Are any of the grain companies doing malt barley cash plus for export business? Could the CWB put malt barley export business together at any price (i.e. work with an exporter to get farmer contracting/selectiion)? If malt barley export business were available but it would negatively impact CWB total payments, would they do the business? How will the costs of the court challenges, etc be allocated to the overall pooling system? to many questions that take away from the decision should I sign a malt barley contract with a selector versus the simple is this price good enough.

I don't know about any else but I look forward to the day I can see a real price and not some forecast of what a total payment might be. The cash plus has gone someways to answering these concerns but hit/miss, mostly invisible and only periodically available.

[Burbert]

Everyone has adopted a wait and see.
If'n the Comedian government destroys
the Comedian grain marketing system,
chaos will ultimately rein, cheap, means
cheaper grain to flow. The cost of
freedom is a real bitch, it
seems.......... One ting sure, the
price of brew won't fall er shreddies
fer that matter, who'll git the money,
welllllll the rich git richer and the
poor Comedian farmer will get poorer,
butt who gives a rats butt? No i,
guess.

[mcfarms]

Somebodies been reading agrimoney.

[mcfarms]

Except if you read all the way to the bottom interestly we also have to be aware of what is happening in Argentina.

[mcfarms]

Charlie

Was told grain cash plus's were pulled as the board was wanting all the barley post harvest in the pool.

Not sure if that was true for all line companies though.

[oneoff]

And who is selling barley of any class or grade for anything other than feed at less than $5.00 picked up. Some of it is being exported; and when the CWB buyback is taken into account; the true market value of on farm barley is in excess of $5.50 right now.

So keep on selling for $3 or 4 bucks or whatever; and at the end of the day we'll all see that it was all really given away for what someone was willing to pay; and more importantly; what farmers were willing to take to part with their production.

Will the majority ever learn? or is it really out of farmers hands?

[oneoff]

Is it only a matter of getting a nickel more than your closest neighbor?

[Burbert]

Nobody is sellin nuttin right now! Even
the canolie guys/gals is holdin tight!
Not a single grain hauler in sight.
Uncertainty is good fer the market it
appears.....When in doubt, hold tight soos
you kin get that one more nickel than the
neighbour...........

[charliep]

Burbert

From a strategy standpoint, is storing grain a good thing or bad thing? I assume you believe that is farmer right to decide when they sell.

To the topic, how would you be marketing barley you feel has a good chance of being selected? I assume that unless you have a still in the back 40 or a malt plant, you have to deal with the supply chain. You may hate everyone in the supply chain but you need their help to convert your barley into beer/meat. Just a reality of life.

[charliep]

Perhaps where my brain is at and what I am working on is having good solid information to make decisions on. This includes knowing current prices based on actual sales.

A challenge moving ahead is to develop the processes around gathering prices where actual business is being transacted/traded at. In my thinking, this is the foundation for solid market decision making.

[mcfarms]

Pro farmer had a good article out on malt barley disussing world prices and whats going on. I'm sure Burbert gets that so I don't need to share what it said .