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Well another month is gone in 2024. Moisture is still a good topic to start conversations with. Some areas in eastern MB are way too wet. 20 inches so far with terrible moisture stress. Carberry west into eastern SK are in pretty decent shape. Crops are good in those areas. They are still behind normal but catching up at a very fast rate. Corn and soybeans are jumping with all the heat. Most producers that I have talked to think crops are 10 days to 2 weeks behind the last 5 years. Barley harvest won’t start until mid August rather than the first week of Aug. Talked to Richie at Yorkton today and he said crops are generally in good shape, with just nice moisture. Naturally there are some areas that have gotten too much rain. 8 inches between Yorkton and Melville. From our Alberta brokers it seems that further west the crops are doing okay too, but will need some more moisture to finish the crops. Even still, this is more moisture than the last few years. In general, most of the crops that were seeded early are looking fantastic – with winter wheat looking really nice in most areas. Crop prices have sure taken a bath since I wrote June’s newsletter. I am surprised at how low feed barley has dropped. Here in western MB we have gone from $5.10 to $4.50 in the last month. I would think we are close to the bottom but who knows. To give you a reference in pricing barley across prairies, at Diamond City AB the bid was at $5.50 for Sept/Oct movement. There is more than $1.00 freight between here and there. $60/MT likely. This helps illustrate why eastern prices are as low as they are. Corn is very competitive with prices running $6.20 delivered into MB locations. With barley acres down again this year it will be interesting to see how things play out. New crop feed bids are on par with old crop bids at this time. Malt buyers don’t seem to be very aggressive either. Been hearing bids of $6.25 to $6.50 picked up in eastern SK. Something to keep in mind as harvest is getting closer. Make sure you keep good samples and please, if you are harvesting crops that need to be GMO free make sure your harvesting equipment is cleaned and then flushed out. If you have $10 yellow peas sold they can quickly turn into feed peas at $7.50 if 1 soybean or 1 kernel of corn shows up in the sample. I hope no one has the misfortune of finding a bin of heated canola this late in the year. If you do get a good representative sample. Get it graded for % heated and moisture. A picture of the crush strips the grader uses would be helpful as well. Send us the info and we will do our best to help you out. We deal with multiple reliable buyers for this product. It still has many uses but buyers need good accurate information to move it to the right market. This will lead to the best price possible for you. Here are the SK brokers: Richie Yaremko – Yorkton SK – Has been with Quality Grain since 2015, and farmed in the Willowbrook area for 25 years. Worked as a customer service rep for Cargill (Yorkton) for 17 years, followed by 7 years as a farm market advisor and joined Quality Grain after retiring from advising. He brings a wide range of experience in both the farm side and the supplier/marketing side of the business. Robert Rusu – Moose Jaw SK – Joined Quality Grain in 2019. Farmed in the Kayville area for 30 years followed by 11 years with Saskatchewan Crop Insurance as an adjuster. Robert owned and operated his own semi hauling company – hauling fertilizer, grain, and vegetables across Canada and the USA. He has strong connections with the producers in southern SK and with his farming experience brings a lot of expertise to the Quality Grain team. Have a great rest of July, hopefully you get some vacation time somewhere you can cool down. Quality Grain Marketing began text messaging updates last month If you would like to be added to our text group please let me know by texting the toll free number directly +1 (833) 768-8889 with your Name, Location, and crops you are interested in getting price updates on. Or if you would prefer you can let your broker know, respond to this email or scan the QR code below. Till next month, Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell [email protected]
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Good Day,
May 2024 is in the books. It is amazing how things change weather wise. At the end of April producers were talking about no subsoil moisture. That is no longer a problem. Here in MB, there is still crop to put in. My best guess would be 70% seeded across the whole province. I think seeding has been impacted in various areas all across the prairies. For many years now, Southern AB was getting used to being done seeding early May, that was not the case this year. Northern AB is ahead of normal. Eastern MB is a bit behind due to excess moisture. And it goes on from there. There isn’t very much to mention as far as grain prices and movement. It has been very quiet the last 4 weeks. My thoughts are that this is due to seeding dragging on. We are seeing movement opportunities becoming a bit reduced. If you need it to move asap you will take a big discount as most buyers are not short. We have seen a bit of downward pressure on some pulses. Red lentils have softened; yellow peas have come off their highs. If you need movement on some crops it would be better to start now than wait for July. The past few years July hasn’t shown a big backlog of grain, but I think there is still significant grain in the bins. And not much of it is priced for June/July movement. Some New Crop pricing we have been seeing in MB: $4.75 delivered to mill on 2 CW Glyphosate Free Oats, $11.00/bus FOB on glyphosate free 2 CW Yellow Peas, just over $5.00/bus FOB on Barley, $6.90/bus delivered southern SK on Corn. Green Peas have been holding strong with old crop still over $17.00/bus and new crop hanging around $15.00/bus. New crop Small Green Lentils are just shy of 0.50/lbs delivered SK, Large Greens 0.55/lbs del, and reds are holding 0.34/lbs del. Since it is a slow news month for us it thought I would run down the brokers in MB and I am the broker with the most years with Quality Grain I will start. Richard Chambers, lives in Brandon, farmed in the Boissevain area. Worked at Eastman Feeds for 2 years. Has been with Quality for 18 years. Can be reached at [email protected] or 204-761-8320. John Falk, lives in Altona MB, farmed south of Winkler, worked for Seed-ex for 5 years, has been with Quality for 10 years. He is our corn guy. Can be reached at [email protected] or 204-362-0167. Jeff Sigurdson, lives in the Winnipeg area and has been with Quality for 2 years. He is our protein guy (soymeal/ddg), can be reached at [email protected] or 204-205-0380. Johan Brand, lives in the Cardale area, immigrated here from the Netherlands several years ago, works in the hog industry and has been with Quality Grain for 5 years. He can be reached at 204-757-3385. Brent Lewis, lives and farms in the Minnedosa area, worked for Viterra and then Wilbur Ellis, has been with Quality for 2 years, he can be reached at [email protected] or 204-868-8070. As you can see we have a diverse group of Brokers with solid farm backgrounds to help you market your grain. As usual their contact info is at the bottom of the newsletter. If anyone would like help with marketing any crop, we are just a call or message away. Quality Grain Marketing began text messaging updates last month If you would like to be added to our text group please let me know by texting the toll free number directly +1 (833) 768-8889 with your Name, Location, and crops you are interested in getting price updates on. Or if you would prefer you can let your broker know, respond to this email or scan the QR code below. Till next month, Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell [email protected] Good Day,
It seems that it was just last week that I sat down and composed my monthly ration of marketing information. April seemed to be a very short month here. In MB we have been fortunate that there has been enough rain to get everything off to a good start. Everyone I have talked to has commented on how good the field conditions have been so far. We are likely only 8% seeded. It looks like a major storm is tracking through SK today and tomorrow so this might put things on hold for a day or two. Let’s hope it doesn’t get too crazy. Speaking of crazy. The markets are off to their normal tricks again. Problems with the South American bean crop and here we go. This will likely be a good opportunity to market the last of your beans. We have some aggressive buyers looking for dry soybeans to go south. To give you an idea I have bids of $14.63 picked up for 13.0 moisture beans in Souris MB area, two weeks ago it was $13.75 to give you an idea of the jump. Prices are freight dependent, if you might be interested let one of us know and we will keep you posted on current prices. The soybean market is one thing but there seems to be some life in milling wheat. The only issue here is that the line companies just keep moving the basis, so your prices don’t reflect the actual increase. It helps feed wheat as well. This is dragging feed barley and oats a bit higher. Both milling and feed. We have seen barley bids up $5/ MT this week which is good. Today $5.00 is possible in most of southern MB. We still have good demand for heated canola and prices are likely to move higher with the canola board moving up along with soybeans. Hopefully no one has heated canola but if you do, we can help make it less painful. We still need a few loads of yellow peas in MB so let us know what you have left. Good buyers are looking. We aren’t sure how the bean jump will affect peas, but time will tell. If you would like us to do some checking on any new crop prices just let us know. Have $11.00 on yellow peas in SW MB. We are seeing barley bids in Southern Alberta of 6.15/bus delivered Lethbridge Area for June/July delivery and 6.25 for Sept-December and $6.35 delivered for Jan/Feb/Mar ’25. Lethbridge is forecasted to get 2-4 inches of rain over the next couple days, we will see if the weather networks are correct. Feed wheat bids have been creeping back up depending on location. In central SK we were seeing bids in the $8.15-8.40/bus range FOB on Friday. Buyers are interested in new and old crop Green Peas, Yellow Peas, Red Lentils, Green Lentils, Chickpeas. If you have any left in the bin or going into the ground right now let us know and we can price them out for you. Quality Grain Marketing is happy to announce we have jumped into the 21st century with an upgrade to our SMS/Text messaging capabilities. We are still getting the kinks worked out but expect it to be running smoothly by the end of the month. If you would like to be added to our text group please let me know by texting the toll free number directly +1 (833) 768-8889 with your Name, Location, and crops you are interested in getting price updates on. Or if you would prefer you can let your broker know, respond to this email or scan the QR code below. That is it for this month, have a safe and productive seeding season. Till next month, Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell [email protected] Good Day,
Well Spring is here. It’s official. I think everyone is ready to get that crop in the ground. One of the questions that we have been getting this year is what you are seeing for new crop prices. When it’s the end of March and producers are asking that it lets us know that there are still many people trying to decide on what to seed. This is not surprising as there really isn’t any one crop that stands out on the profit line. Wheat just seems to sit there with no life, $14 canola doesn’t get people excited anymore. Maybe oats, ($4.25 in southern MB Aug/Sept) maybe barley (I personally think there will be lots of barley left in bins come end of July). Yellow peas might not be a bad option. – We still can get $10 for Aug-Nov movement in southern MB - inputs are still high but prices aren’t. As you can tell I don’t have a clue either. This will be a hard year to make the call on cropping plans. We are here to help. We are happy to do some large-scale tire kicking for you. That leads to another topic. A good broker is willing to help you with price discovery, dispute resolution and to also provide you with information in regard to what they are seeing day to day in the market. I know there are still producers out there that think they don’t need a broker. Likely they are right most of the time if they devote a significant portion of their time and energy to marketing. We can reduce that time you have to spend as we are in contact with 60 buyers who work for 40 different companies. Our fees are not very large considering we do price discovery for free. Just as an aside. I have never had a producer in the 18 years I have been doing this say to me “I can get a better price than you showed me, but I will still sell through you”. Just doesn’t happen, I wouldn’t expect it either. If we can make you more than our fee, we are not doing our job. Moisture is still a big topic of conversation across the prairies. Here around Brandon, we will be okay to start the crop, but you don’t have to go very far south or east, and it is dry. I think southern AB got a big shot of snow 10 days ago but considering how dry it was that will just get things going. Seems as if eastern SK is in pretty good shape with decent snow cover. If any of you would like to take 1 minute and let us know your moisture conditions, it would be appreciated. Current prices are still showing no signs of bouncing back. Feed barley is running from $4.80 to $5.00 depending on location in MB. Malt barley is dead. Beer consumption in North America is down. Maybe because of one stupid ad or maybe because people have less money for sporting events. Who knows? This has led to maltsters being slow to move barley which is likely going to lead to barley losing quality by the time they want it. I heard 3rd hand that there is some of last year’s malt still in bins and new crop bids are only $6.00 compared to $4.75 for feed. Just a quick rundown of how we do business at Quality Grain. A producer calls with grain to sell, we collect the information about the grain - test weight, moisture, any down grading factors and volume for sale. We put this out to our groups of buyers by email to begin the process. We get bids back from the buyers that are interested. We then present these bids to the producer with any relevant information in regard to the sale. If the price is close to what the producer would like we reach out to the buyer with the closest bid and show him the producer’s offer. If he says yes, we have a deal. If it's a no then we show the offer to all the buyers. It is surprising how often an offer will generate a few more cents/bushel. We then put the deal together on a Brokers Note which spells out price, timeframe, quality and volume. We do not hold an auction where we go back and forth between two buyers and try to run them up. We want our buyers to know that if they say yes to an offer, it is their grain. Not just a stick to beat another buyer with. That is about it for this month. May the snow go in a sensible way and seeding progress as planned. But as the saying goes, "Man plans and God laughs". Have a good April. Till next month, Good Day,
February is in the books and winter has returned to the prairies. More snow in March than most places have seen total for the winter season. I do think this is a good thing as moisture is always welcome. If you are calving 500 cows in the heart of the storm, please don’t send me a letter bomb to express your feelings. Weather is always very subjective as to it being good or bad for your specific operation. We have found in the last few days that all the producers must be moving snow as none of them have been calling us. I think that is in part that we don’t have any good news. Yellow peas have taken a bit of an uptick again due to India coming back to the table for some more peas. This has helped hold new crop pea prices in the $10 range. I know it's not $14 but $10 peas budget out at least as good as any other commodity. We have buyers looking with AoG clauses on their contracts. Contact one of us if interested. Old crop his hoovering closer to $12 picked up. It does not appear there are many Yellow Peas that remain unsold, however it does not seem the lack of supply is going to translate into a price squeeze. Whatever doesn’t get picked up by India will likely remain in the bin until new crop as most processors are willing to wait for August. Barley is still taking it on the chin. There seems to be no life price wise or volume wise. I know it is a broken record but CORN is hanging over the whole market. The possibility of a weather rebound for barley has been reduced significantly with all the snow. Most areas should have moisture to get a good start. This means with modern agriculture methods we only need 3 inches more for a decent crop. There are still good sized lots of barley available in bins across the prairies. Come July there will not be homes for it all unless some country comes shopping soon. The milling oat market has gone quiet. It sounds like most mills have adequate coverage on new crop acres bought up, and old crop is not needed. The feed oat bid has dropped to $4.40 (or less) delivered to most feeders. Anyone waiting for $5.00 off farm will be waiting for the foreseeable future. Wheat is another commodity taking it on the chin. We are hearing some producers tell us that their local elevators have the odd special worth selling into, otherwise the feed market is closer to $7.25/bus with very light demand. Brown flax has some demand pushed out into the summer months for movement in the $14.50-15.50/bus FOB depending on location and quality. We have seen prices on new crop lentils slowly falling. For example, in the first week of March we were seeing NC red lentils closer to $0.35/lbs but on the 8th pricing had sunk closer to $0.31/lbs with AoG. Specialty crops like Yellow Mustard have seen their pricing lose $0.40/lbs since September with prices in the $0.50-0.55/lbs range picked up. In previous years we have had no issues getting strong bids on heated canola, however, this year seems to be the exception. We have some interest in all conditions but the market is far softer than it has been anytime in the last 5 years. Let us know what you have with moisture, volume, and a good sample rolled out. Sitting on your heated canola waiting for the market to turn around is not a good way to fix the problem. The quality certainly won’t get better and blending is always a risky way to fix the problem. The first loss is almost always the best one. So give us a call. It might be a good idea to start planning on whether to hold what you have left into new crop or come up with a marketing plan to make sure you have the bin space come fall. With road restrictions either on or just around the corner and low demand on feed grains it may not be the easiest time to get your grain moving between now and seeding. If you are sitting on a big percentage, maybe you should do some shopping and get a plan for a few loads to move each month between now and August. These are my thoughts on what we are seeing take place in the markets. I apologize we can’t give a rosier outlook but give one of us a call and talk about what you need to have happen and maybe we can make something work for you. Till next month, Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell [email protected] |
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