Selling opportunity in grain markets
The grain markets over the last couple of months have had a very useful rise and now is, I would think, a selling opportunity.
I am hearing that there is a lot of grain on the East to market, but the big question is whether that is going to be held over into the next crop year or not. Whatever happens there will, I suspect, depend on bank managers and how benevolent they are feeling.
As far as new crop grain is concerned, how far has that got to go up? Bear in mind that consumers will have had a year to get themselves organised with imported supplies for next year, which they are doing.
As a consequence I would be surprised if we saw much more of a rise in new crop values, maybe between £5 and £10. But be careful, once imported grain or maize starts coming in it will have a negative effect on the market fairly quickly.
In the forthcoming year we will be net importers with a national wheat crop not much over 10.5 million tonnes, an all-time low.
And with sheds full of this year’s stocks I suspect fertiliser can only get cheaper after the spring rush.
David Roberts, G.O Davies (Westbury) Ltd
