Monday Market Briefing - 29th April

We have often discussed the lack of available feed wheat demand, instead growing quality grains for your available local market.  Last week we saw a good example of the problems associated with growing feed grains in the South-East with a delivery of almost 90,000 MT of feed wheat against the LIFFE London Futures Exchange.

In simple terms, LIFFE can be regarded as the home of last resort.  For most of the time, it is more efficient to purchase grain from UK farms for available feed homes.  When domestic demand is poor, and the UK is uncompetitive on export values, feed wheat stock values fall low enough that the best available price is onto the LIFFE futures market.  Most of the tonnage delivered last week was in isolated Southern and Eastern locations, including many port-side facilities.  This wheat has high execution costs to reach domestic markets as most feed demand is in the North.  Unfortunately the situation is likely to be similar for Harvest 2024, as the UK is forecasted to have a NET import requirement.  These imports will be met from cheap corn stocks, and milling wheat supply from Baltic/Black Sea countries.

At Bartholomews, we have long advocated for growing quality grains; 13% protein Group 1’s for UK requirements and 11.5% protein soft wheat for export demand into the EU.  We have recently released our autumn wheat seed campaign, and all Group 3 soft varieties including Almara, Illuminate and Bamford have been in high demand.  Even though the UK will not be a NET exporter this season, UK soft wheat continues to be sought overseas with premiums up to £30/MT over feed wheat.  Please contact your Bartholomews agronomist or farm trader for seed enquires, or email seed@bartholomews.co.uk

Have a good week