Monday Market Briefing - 17th July 2023

November LIFFE had a look at the low £190’s early on before deciding it didn’t like the view and settling plus £3 on the week at £196.30. We had a pretty dull USDA report and then on Friday news starting to leak that the extension of the Black Sea corridor ( due to expire this Monday ) has been signed off by Russia. Markets have long since grown tired of this storyline and there was no reaction to it one way or the other. The Ukrainian harvest is under way, gathering what will be a further reduced crop on the previous year but this more than offset by production gains elsewhere in the world we except. The severe heatwave currently affecting all of Europe’s Mediterranean coastline might have some impact on markets this week. All in all, we look a little range bound with no real direction for prices at least until we see the main crops harvested.

We saw limited harvest progress at home as rain interruptions held most things back. Hopefully, the high winds that forced the cancellation of Goodwood’s Festival of Speed Saturday programme, won’t have flattened too many crops in the area. Prospects this week are for mainly dry, calm conditions so fingers crossed we can crack on. Early samples of winter barley are pretty good on the whole and we can be hopeful this is indicative of a good quality crop to work with again this year.  I doubt we have ever gone into harvest before with so little grain traded forward as this year, which leaves the trade with a bit of a challenge in trying to anticipate and prepare for what things farmers will eventually want to sell when we get going.

Our 2023 team of harvest samplers have their training inductions this week - and will then be ready to get out there and run a spear over the new intake – prompt results can make such a difference in getting access to those early markets. If we do see generally high quality in the samples there will be some urgency to grab the big premiums available on the deferred months in case they come under pressure later on. So give us a call when you are ready for a sampler visit.

Have a good week.