MarketsFarm — Tight barley supplies in Western Canada continue to keep the feed market underpinned, with gains in the U.S. corn market also providing support to grain markets in general.
“We’re starting to see a bit of an early weather market in the U.S.,” Allen Pirness of Market Place Commodities in Lethbridge said.
Rising corn prices were keeping U.S. corn from entering the Canadian market to any large extent, he said, with barley and wheat accounting for the bulk of the rations locally.
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As the harvest in southern Alberta presses on, a broker said that is one of the factors pulling feed prices lower in the region. Darcy Haley, vice-president of Ag Value Brokers in Lethbridge, added that lower cattle numbers in feedlots, plentiful amounts of grass for cattle to graze and a lacklustre export market also weighed on feed prices.
The barley supply situation is getting tighter and tighter, which Pirness expected would keep the market supported for the balance of the crop year.
As the tight old-crop situation is unlikely to improve, the market is hopeful for a large barley crop in 2021 to replenish supplies.
“If we get any kind of weather market here, it will affect the new crop,” Pirness said.
A weather scare could also cause farmers to slow sales of any remaining old-crop grain in anticipation of even higher prices, he added.
— Phil Franz-Warkentin reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.
