Australian, Canadian and U.S. feed barley are offered at round about US $ 140,- FOB, EU feed barley at min. US $ 180,-. Reasons are: first of all our protectionist market system, but also the lack of cheap grain supplies from Eastern Europe, firm markets of oilmeals and other feeders and finally the firm Euro currency. Price levels of milling wheat and all feed grains are 50 % above intervention price levels on average. Feed barley costs above EUR 150,- in the consumption centers of Brittany, Vlanders, South Holland, Northwest Germany and Jutland, and little less in the U.K. Therefore malting barley of crop 2003 is EUR 160,- and more, delivered malthouse. As there is a variable freight cost from growers and coops to malthouses, feed mills and seaports, the malting barley premium is reduced to almost zero in some places, and quality barley disappears in the feed sector.

06 February, 2004