Monday Market Briefing - 2nd February 2026

The last soggy week of January was a busy, active one with prices tracking sideways again and farmers taking old crop opportunities to tidy up. Markets typically start to take their direction from perceived new crop prospects at this time of year, will the next crop get planted and are there any weather threats emerging? Severe cold in eastern Europe is expected this week but if you’ve been skiing you will appreciate there is thought to be plenty of snow cover to protect young crops this year. Nevertheless market shorts often get twitchy as crop condition reports start to flow and this should be enough to at least hold prices at current levels for the time being.

Wet weather will be hampering early drilling of spring barley, forecasts for the first half of February are slightly better for UK with the major weather systems landing instead on southern France and Iberia – parts of Spain/Portugal currently have 10 inches of rain in the two week forecast. After a difficult season where strong domestic feed barley demand has swallowed up any malting premium in many areas, we do have to address the question – is it worth growing spring malting barley?

We will learn more about the demand outlook in the coming months but right now you can trade 2026 crop comfortably for £20 premiums or more particularly for the second half of the new season. Fixed fallbacks to feed can be included to mitigate any quality risk if required, if you are an experienced spring barley grower on the right ground it’s comfortably the best option this year to grow the crop again. Speak to the grain team to discuss managing the risk for this important crop.

Have a good week.