USA: Barley prices stay steady while quality still assessed in North Dakota

With the backlog of old crop malting barley still out in farm bins, elevator and terminal storage, the maltsters haven't seen an urgency to price the new crop barley which has quality problems in many areas, according to the Farm &Ranch guide of September 14.

"There isn't too much going on in the malting barley market, we are still working with the old crop," Darrell Miller at the Taft Elevator in Hillsboro, North Dakota, said. "The VOM is pretty high this year but it's really hard to say right now how this might affect the market for the current crop. We haven't really gotten into the new crop yet and gotten a bid on it yet but we're hoping that sometime this month we will get some numbers to work with."

The end of the carryover crop may be in sight at least in some locations. The Taft Elevator is an agent for Rahr Malt, and Miller expects to have most of the farm bins cleaned out of old crop barley within the next month or so. Miller termed the malting barley crop in the Hillsboro area as pretty poor. In many cases the protein, test weight and plumpness was okay, but most of the fields showed high VOM levels and the yields were substantially less than what the farmers were expecting. Even though the Taft Elevator doesn't trade in the feed barley market, Miller expects some of the barley acreage contracted for malting barley will end up as feed barley because of the disease problem, which logically will lead to additional downward pressure on feed barley prices.

The latest reports from Canada indicate their barley harvest is being held up by high rainfall amounts, which is starting to impact grain quality. According to Saskatchewan's provincial department of agriculture, the barley harvest is only seven percent completed, and there are reports of staining, bleaching and sprouting throughout the province.

Small price movement was noted for both feed and malting barley in a check of local elevator prices. Malting barley prices remained virtually unchanged at all locations and traded in a fairly narrow range, with prices ranging from a high of $2 a bushel to a low of $1.79. Feed barley prices were also fairly level, with just a couple stations reporting a nickel slide in prices. The spread on feed barley prices was a high of $1.45 and a low of $1.24.

16 September, 2005