Reading Time: < 1 minute MarketsFarm — Seasonal weight restrictions and spring road bans are providing some underlying support for feed grain bids in Western Canada, with the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak also being followed closely. “Winter weights are coming off, which is restricting the areas (feedlots) can pull from,” said Allen Pirness, of MarketPlace Commodities in Lethbridge, adding “there’s a […] Read more
Feed weekly outlook: Seasonal restrictions underpin grains
Coronavirus fallout being watched
Balancing demands for both quality and yield in barley
New barley varieties show yield gains over old favourites AC Metcalfe and CDC Copeland. What’s needed now is industry acceptance
Reading Time: 4 minutes A quick scan of the farm press this spring might have been enough to convince you Canadian barley has a yield problem. The sharp drop in Prairie acreage suggests farmers may think the same thing — only 6.2 million acres were seeded last year, about two million less than 10 years earlier and half the […] Read more
Feed weekly outlook: Soft demand weighs on prices
Reading Time: < 1 minute MarketsFarm — Feed grain prices on the Prairies remain soft ahead of spring planting, due to quiet demand from feedlots. “Feedlots are full of grain right now,” Brandon Motz of CorNine Commodities at Lacombe, Alta. said, explaining that there’s currently a lot of grain in feeding pipelines. “Spring replacement into feedlots has been really slow.” […] Read more
Feed weekly outlook: Softening barley market to stabilize
Reading Time: < 1 minute MarketsFarm — Feed barley bids in Western Canada have softened over the past few weeks, but should stabilize as the spring approaches. “I don’t think there’s a lot of potential to push this thing much higher, and I don’t think the bottom will fall out either. What you see is what you get,” Matt Froehlich, […] Read more
Feed weekly outlook: Bids pressured by lower demand
Reading Time: < 1 minute MarketsFarm — Feed grain prices have remained soft, as feedlots in Western Canada are covered for the foreseeable future. Last week, prices for feed barley and feed wheat delivered in Lethbridge were around $230 per tonne, but have come down by about $10 since then, according to Allan Pirness of Market Place Commodities. While these […] Read more
Strong export demand, acreage ahead for barley
Lower supplies from Australia benefit Canadian growers
Reading Time: 2 minutes MarketsFarm — Canadian malting barley acreage is expected to remain high in the coming year, mostly due to strong export demand. Peter Watts, managing director of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Center in Winnipeg, said tough harvest conditions were partially to blame for lowered malt barley output in 2019. “We had a fairly lousy harvest, […] Read more
Feed weekly outlook: Buyers not looking to make purchases
Reading Time: < 1 minute MarketsFarm — Feed grain prices were beginning to soften as many buyers don’t have a major need to purchase from growers, said Nelson Neumann, senior trader for Agfinity in Stony Plain, Alta. “There’s still obviously a demand, but buyers are pretty well covered for the February-March timeframe. That’s a window where a lot of growers […] Read more
Feed weekly outlook: Rally likely to end soon
Reading Time: < 1 minute MarketsFarm — After a bit of a rally for feed grain prices over the last three to four weeks, the feedlots are on the full side, said Brandon Motz of CorNine Commodities at Lacombe, Alta. “That normally means we back off a little bit,” he said, noting there hasn’t been an uptick in deliveries with […] Read more
Feed weekly outlook: Temperatures rise, Prairie bids cool down
Reading Time: < 1 minute MarketsFarm — Feed grain bids in southern Alberta are cooling down as temperatures warm up after a bitter cold spell earlier in the month. After dealing with temperatures in the -20 C to -34 C range over much of the week ended Jan. 17, conditions in the key Lethbridge feeding area have flipped the other […] Read more
Feed weekly outlook: Best not to wait to sell
Reading Time: < 1 minute MarketsFarm — As warmer winter temperatures are bound to happen, the sooner farmers can sell their feed grain the better, said Nelson Neumann, senior trader for Agfinity at Stony Plain, Alta. “There’s still a lot of high-moisture feed grain that’s in storage and frozen,” he said, commenting “I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
