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Good Day,
Well, we have made it through another crop year and it was a very interesting year. Short crop which led to good prices, followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This drove the markets into an extreme situation with prices whipsawing back and forth faster than a person could follow. Prices in western Canada topped out 6-8 weeks ago. Then the funds thought they would take the profits they had made and now the Russians pretended they were going to allow grain exports to start again and this put prices into a virtual freefall. Every time we thought we had hit bottom, a new low occurred. It doesn’t feel that we are getting anywhere close to stable markets in the near future. This period will have been a real test for market advisors and producers alike. Do you recommend selling when canola rallies $40 in a day only to drop $38 the next day? Do you as a producer lock in some of the prices that are still available? Eg) – Oats at $7.00 for off combine in March compared to $5.00 right now for the same timeframe. This is likely one of the hardest times to decide what to do. We might be able to help so don’t hesitate to contact any of the excellent people working with Quality Grain. Crop prospects seem to be fairly good across the prairies right now. Things are delayed in eastern SK and MB as it was too wet at seeding plus flooding in the Red River valley. I would say that 90% of the intended acres are still in production at this time between some fields that were just too wet and the drowned out spots. Pretty much everyone I have talked to in this area are saying crops look amazing considering how wet it was through May and June. We are seeing fall rye and what little winter wheat survived getting close to harvest. We do have good interest in both crops for Sept-Nov movement. $8.00 rye is still available if anyone is interested. Some things to remember as harvest approaches. Keep good samples of every bin. This is a money maker. There is no way you can maximize the returns from your crop without good information. Do not be afraid to spend some money getting your samples graded. The local line companies are grading for their own benefit not yours. Intertec or SGS do a great job of giving you EXPORT based grades on all crops. There is nothing worse than shipping several loads of what you thought were #2 quality oats as an example and the buyer grades them a 4. Now what do you do? Bring them home? Not likely an option. Discounts are at buyer's discretion. That is not likely going to be fun. Be careful with cleanout of trucks and handling equipment when switching crops. Nothing worse than having that discount or causing a rejection on the last load out of the bin due to contamination. Keep good records on what was applied to the crop as harvest approaches. We are getting more enquiries about that and more bids based on no glyphosate on oats and peas as an example. It isn’t that we can find decent markets if you are forced to apply certain products, but we need to know at the time of marketing. Price discovery is harder than I have ever seen it in the 18 years I have been working with Quality Grain. Some days we have no bid on certain commodities. The best thing you can do is give us a call and we will get to work and find out what the buyers are thinking. I would be very interested if some of our producers would give us a bit of an update on how their crops are doing as far as maturity and yield potential. We would prefer that you be a bit more accurate than you are while completing your Stats Canada reports HAHA. We will let everyone know what info we get from this request. On that note, we will be in touch again later in the month. Until then be careful and enjoy what is left of summer. Till next month. Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell richard@qualitygrain.ca
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Good Afternoon, I have been a bit negligent in regard to getting the newsletter out for this month. I hope you feel better late than never. We drove down through Manitoba and Ontario to Toronto over the last 2 weeks. The northern route is very scenic but Canada should not consider that road an accomplishment in road building. The crop in southern Ontario is under moisture stress and pastures and lawns are brown. We came back through the US and didn’t see much crop until Bemidji MN. From there to home the crops looked generally good but I would say 10% of seeded acres have drowned out. Everything was 10 days behind normal. We also saw a much bigger number of fields not seeded. But if I was a US farmer looking at seeding a late crop in mud or taking the $400 plus/ acre prevent plant payment I think I know how I would go. It has been a very dramatic market over the last 6 weeks. See the chart below showing the drop per ton since mid June on Barley and Feed Wheat. I don’t think anyone saw this kind of price drop coming. My personal thoughts are that we haven’t found millions of tonnes of grain in the world over the last 6 weeks. I think it is being driven by the funds getting out so they can take their profits and start the whole cycle again. I think the drop is likely over done but I also don’t think we will see a rally before the new crop is in the bin. But just remember that my opinion is only worth what you paid for it.  A couple of things to remember as harvest is approaching.
Always keep good samples of your bins. It is likely one of the ways to make more money with very little cost and in less time than you would think. Information is king. Take the time to submit samples as you get the crop harvested if the contract requires it. We get calls every year from producers wondering why their off combine moved grain is still in the bin when the buyer is waiting for a sample. We are getting the feeling if you need to market grain off combine for cash flow reasons you will have to pick and choose which crops you go with. The new crop contracts we are seeing now have 4- and 5-month delivery windows as processors are struggling with shipping and are afraid it will only get worse. Just something to keep in mind. We still have limited demand for feed grains, but the prices have been trimmed 20 to 30% from the highs. The approaching new crop pulse harvest is also pushing down demand in those markets. Give us a call if you are looking for any old crop prices. We are still seeing some decent new crop feed barley prices in some areas. We can likely help with that too. That is about it for this month. Enjoy the bit of a lull before harvest hits full swing, take the kids to the lake. Go fishing and enjoy our Canadian summer. Till next month. Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell richard@qualitygrain.ca Good Afternoon,
As I write this newsletter, wheat makers on the CBT are up anywhere from $0.50/bushel for winter wheats to $0.35/bus for HRS wheat. Two years ago, this would have been a major move. This year it is just another normal trading day. These dramatic swings are reflecting the instability in all markets from commodities to the stock market. No one knows what will happen over the next 3 months let alone over the next 12 months. This makes marketing extremely hard. We have never seen such indecision in our producers when it comes to pulling the trigger. Viewing it from our desks, it is an interesting trip. Producers do need to remember that when you seeded the crop you are selling you never expected to get offered $16 for milling wheat and $15.25 for feed wheat. It’s best to keep in mind what goes up will always come down. In the feed market we have seen some noticeable softening of barley prices in the last few trading days. This is being driven by rain in Alberta. Anywhere from 0.5 inches to 2 inches. This came in a very timely fashion as it will ensure even germination and keep crops moving ahead. Will we claw the losses back over the next 6 weeks? Hard to say as every week is that much closer to new crop. And it is getting seeded. Even the real wet areas in eastern SK and MB have made great progress in the last 5 days. It’s amazing what can get seeded when the push is on. Feed wheat is still holding on but not as strong as before. The feeding industry will need the packers to pay more, or they will drown in red ink if feed prices don’t come down. We still have some interest in new crop feed grain, peas and flax if you are interested. Just a couple of things that have come up in the last month I would like to address. Firstly, when you are shipping grain off farm take a minute and climb up and check the hoppers to make sure they are clean. A bit of fertilizer left in the truck because the driver couldn’t be bothered doing a proper cleanout is going to be very expensive for you. Rejected load, downgraded grain, lawsuits maybe. These could be all avoided by taking a quick peak. If you are sending $24,000 dollars off farm, wouldn’t you want to be sure it got where it’s going in marketable condition. Second: If you are selling milling oats make sure that you get them graded with grams/.5liter test weight, moisture and % thins. These are all important but the thins can really bite you. Some buyers treat any thins over 6% as dockage while others are okay up to 10%. Just because your oats weight 248g/.5l don’t assume that the thins are low. We had a sample this year that was 250g/.5l with 12% thins. Since the producer never mentioned the high thin % it was a big surprise when the dockage was very high. Not good for anyone. Third: I think I mentioned this before but more and more of our buyers are offering E-Transfer. We are really promoting this as Canada post is not making a good job of getting your money to you. Our buyers will put the money in your account, send you a notification of this happening by email or TX and also send you a statement of your unloads. Something to consider. That’s it for this month. As always, give us a call if you have grain to market. We can kick tires much more effectively that you can as we work closely with 45 different buyers. Even at 5 minutes a call that will take you a while. And if you get offers of "great" deal from one of your local buyers just send us a Tx and we will let you know if it is or is not. Till next month. Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell richard@qualitygrain.ca Good Afternoon,
As the ancient Chinese curse goes, “May you live in interesting times.” May is off to an “interesting” start. We have been finding a fair amount of grain. Just not trading much. Buyers and sellers seem to have a difference of opinion on pricing. We saw markets dip at the end of April, but the cash feed prices are coming back strong in May. We have seen feed wheat bids of $14 FOB farm in Manitoba. Seems that there is still good demand, but as I have said before empty feed bins aren’t an option. Some people feel that these prices have no were to go but up, however, I am inclined to disagree. There is a point where the loss that you will face from feeding your livestock is so big and you can’t get a position to protect yourself financially and producers will be forced to sell at whatever the market is. If that happens breeding stock will likely follow the fed stock to market. Just economics 101. Long term not good for agriculture in Canada. For our readers in the west we are seeing feed barley bids in Alberta approaching $10/bus delivered to Lethbridge - unfortunately many producers are expecting that number picked up in the yard and are going to have to keep waiting. 2 CW Rye bids are around $10/bus FOB. Feed bids for White wheat are trailing feed bids for Red wheat at $12.25/bus white vs 13.50+/bus red. Seeing milling oat bids drop significantly. Last week we had bids around $9/bus this week they are closer to $8/bus and dropping. That being said, we still have real interest in any feed grain. Looks like barley acres are predicted down with oats picking up much of the diverted acres. This is supported by the pole that I had taken while talking to producers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see soybean acres in the US rise more than predicted just because beans are not hogs for fertilizer. If this happens the North American feed markets should stay strong for most or all of next year. This doesn’t mean $11 barley and $12 corn but just good profitable prices. Here in MB, we have the opposite problem that Western SK and AB have. We have too much water. The area from Portage to the east side of the Red River is going to be 25 to 30 days later than normal. This likely will change planting intentions to some degree. More barley less corn maybe? We are seeing good new crop prices, $8.00 barley, 6.75 oats, 11.50 wheat, $30 brown flax, $13.50 green and yellow peas, 38 cent red lentils, $0.98/lb yellow mustard, $1.10/lb brown mustard. The pulses, mustards and flax have AoG clauses. If any of this is interesting to you, call the broker you have been working with. If not, call head office and Reed will put you in touch with the right broker. All contact numbers are at the end of this newsletter. Just remember to give us a call for a second opinion on prices when you plan on doing some marketing. We kick tires for free and with feed grains we kick about 50 tires at a time so we have pretty good coverage. Just a little note before I sign off. If you have any bins that have not had tops pulled, please check them. We are seeing crusted peas, barley, oats and heated canola. The grain all went in very dry, but it is that time of year. We can find markets for all qualities, but it is better for you if the grain has no issues. Till next month, Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell richard@qualitygrain.ca Good Afternoon, Well as we all know this is a day for the jokers to have a great time fooling their family, friends and coworkers with harmless pranks. Unfortunately, the world is in the grip of some pranksters who are not interested in creating laughs or anything resembling humor. Between the Ukrainian war (as there is no other way to describe it) and our useless government's response to this situation. This has created so much uncertainty in the world grain markets that no one can predict where it is going. The only thing that we are finding that is consistent across the buyers we work with is no one wants to be caught in a long position. Everyone is buying hand to mouth. But the urgency we saw 3 months ago and then again when the Ukrainian war started seemed to have left the market. Prices on just about all commodities have drifted lower. There are still homes for everything that we have offered this month. But there is a big spread between what buyers and sellers think is a fair price. Just a couple of interesting things I have run across this week in regard to supply and transportation. On the supply side we had a buyer who was looking for about 500 MT of good oats for a groating facility in the US. He was talking strong prices, possibly up to $10 in good freight locations. This sale vanished when the buyer found MB oats from a reseller for $1.00 bushel less in SE MB. This tells me that some buyers are solving their long positions proactively. On the transportation side of things BN Rail has raised their fuel surcharge from $0.12/ mile to $0.47/ mile in the last month. Someone will have to cover that increase and I know you guys can figure out who will pick up the cheque in the end. On the grain side just for interest’s sake I will mention the highest price for a commodity that we have ever traded (to date I will add) yellow mustard at $4650.44/MT delivered to Southern Saskatchewan. $186,000 for a super-b. On a more ordinary note, barley is still trading around $390 to $400/MT, feed wheat $410 to $430 depending on location, milling oats $9, feed oats $6.50, brown flax $37, yellow peas $17, green peas $15. These are just general prices. If you would like, we are more than willing to get you firm bids picked up in your yard. We do still have good demand for all commodities, especially heated canola. Premium prices considering the price of good canola, but it varies so much with quality. Until next month, Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell richard@qualitygrain.ca |