Japan: Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture invites bids for 100,000 tonnes of feed barley

Japan's Ministry of Agriculture aims to buy 100,000 tonnes of feed barley via a tender under the simultaneous buy and sell (SBS) system closing on Aug. 20, a ministry official was quoted as saying by Reuters on August 13.

All shipments must be made by Nov. 30, it was announced.

The SBS scheme allows greater flexibility than ordinary tenders, as users and trading firms can negotiate the grain's origin, price and quantity in advance before together placing a bid to the government.

The ministry said last month it would conduct import tenders for wheat and barley for animal feed use about twice a month, instead of once every two months as previously.

Japan controls imports of key grains, so that prices are stable in a country where the food self-sufficiency ratio is only 40 percent on a calorie basis.

In the previous such tender held on Aug. 6, the farm ministry bought 88,420 tonnes of feed barley.

That was short of the ministry's initial plan to purchase 335,000 tonnes of barley, but was likely due to the increased frequency of tenders, which means bidders can choose more easily when to buy, traders said.

"At that time, they decided to wait for barley prices to fall further as corn prices were sliding," a manager at a Japanese trading company said.

Canadian barley futures fell in the past month, with October barley closing at $216.60 per tonne on August 12, down about 20 percent from the level in mid-July.

14 August, 2008