MarketsFarm — Feed grain bids in Western Canada have shown some strength in recent weeks, despite the advancing harvest.
“We’ve been seeing a rally through harvest, which is an odd thing,” grain merchant Jay Janzen of CorNine Commodities at Lacombe, Alta. said. He tied the unseasonable strength to solid demand and a lack of significant farmer selling.
“We’ve seen barley rally by 50 to 60 cents (per bushel) over the past two weeks,” he said.
“A lot of these feedlots are seeing the price relative to corn and are covering their needs through the next few months,” he said, adding the feedlots do not want to be caught off guard and see a repeat of 2021 when domestic grain supplies were tight, and they were forced to import more corn from the United States.
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On the other side, farmers are locking the bins until they see higher prices unless they need to move for bin space.
Statistics Canada recently pegged 2022 Canadian barley production at 9.43 million tonnes, which would be well above the 6.96 million tonnes grown the previous year.
With the increased production there may not be much more room to the upside for prices, although Janzen expected bids could still grind higher.
“There’s probably a bit of a war between the feeders and the farmers at the moment,” he added.
— Phil Franz-Warkentin reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.
