Grain Today - February 2022

Good Morning,


It has been a wild ride in the markets these last 18 months. We have seen all commodities other than wheat climb to record high prices. We have seen the futures market make swings in a 24-hour period that normally take weeks to achieve. We have seen both producers and buyers say this is crazy but let it run. This seems to have led to decisions being made on feelings rather than fact. In the fall most producers were saying it’s a short crop, so the sky's the limit and by October it seemed that they were going to be right. Buyers had to pay up or have, either, empty feed bins or nothing coming into process.

We saw amazing gains in some commodities such as flax. We traded $48 a bushel during that time frame. (FYI this is $75,000 for 1 x 40 MT load). Turns out that if prices get too strong buyers find other sources for what they need. Flax is now trading at $35 to $38/bus. Not cheap but likely sustainable for this crop. We have been pricing new crop at $25/bus. This is an example of where new crop pricing has moved to. We traded close to $7.00 for new crop oats before Christmas and now it's hard to find $6.00/bus.

New crop Yellow peas have softened a bit as well. But still are going to be profitable at $12 for a good #2 and up to $13 for a specialty no glyphosate pea for later delivery. Priced some new crop barley at mid $6 for off combine as well.

From the conversations we are having with producers there seems to be strong interest in oats and yellow peas. Both crops with decent new crop pricing and a much lower nitrogen bill attached to growing them. I am not sure if it is too late to price some at good levels but if you have none priced it might be a good idea to consider this. I do think wheat and barley will be the 2 crops that give up acres to oats and peas. Still decent new crop malt contracts available. $8.25 picked up. We haven’t priced any new crop wheat but have heard from producers that there have been some pretty good opportunities to lock in wheat.

We have been trading some $9 barley picked up in MB and SE SK. Limited tonnes. $11 feed wheat in the same areas, $6-7 feed oats and 8.50 milling oats. We do have demand for more feed wheat in that area as well. Have buyers looking for 1 CAN canola as well. $23 picked up for Mar/Apr. Some days that looks good 48 hours later it is $.50/bushel short. Call if you would like to get on our canola list as I think there will be some opportunities going forward. It seems that the crush margins are still strong so until supplies are too costly or hard to source crushers will keep going. For them it is a good thing that export canola hasn’t been moving at last year's pace.

Just my thoughts for this month. If you have any comments or questions, contact any one of the brokers on the list below and we will do our best to help you. Remember, even if you are just kicking tires, we can kick them faster and with more complete coverage than you can. We deal with dozens of different buyers from across Canada daily.


Until next month,





Richard Chambers
Marketer - Brandon, MB
204-729-1354 - Office
204-761-8320 - Cell
[email protected]