MarketsFarm — Feed grain prices have softened ahead of harvesting season, due in part to improving growing conditions and a stronger Canadian dollar.
Drought conditions earlier in the summer had threatened Prairie crop yields and buoyed feed grain prices, but the weather premium has subsided thanks to recent rains.
“Rain showed us we’ll have a crop,” said Allen Pirness of Market Place Commodities in Lethbridge.
“That’s given some incentive to farmers to sell their old-crop grains.”
Since concerns of shortages are no longer prevalent, old-crop barley prices are in the $270 range in Lethbridge, compared to highs of $290 observed a few weeks earlier.
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Feed corn prices have also lowered, due partly to a strong Canadian dollar. U.S. corn prices have dropped due to improved growing conditions in the Midwest.
Corn prices are between $280 and $290, down from previous highs over $300.
Feed wheat prices have also corrected downward from previously-observed highs, following the trend set by barley and corn. A lack of foreign demand for feed wheat has also contributed to softening prices.
Feed wheat was in the $280 range previously, but has settled down to between $260 and $265.
Pirness anticipates wheat and barley stocks to keep corn mostly priced out of the Canadian market.
“There are ample barley and wheat supplies,” he said. “We’ll have to keep the corn out, and that will be achieved by price.”
— Marlo Glass writes for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.
