Grain Today - February 2023

Good Day,

Good day everyone. By the looks of the groundhog’s predictions, we are not done with winter yet. That really doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone living in western Canada. As the saying goes, Manitoba seasons are 10 months of winter with 2 months of poor sledding mixed in. Luckily it isn’t that bad. I know everyone is working toward this year's seeding. We have been getting many requests for new crop pricing and have been pricing yellow mustard, feed and malt barley and a few yellow peas. I don’t think any one has signed one for any new crop oats.

On that note I will mention oats again. I know we have been bringing that up regularly. The supply of oats can only be called burdensome. Unless one of the big boys put on an export program in the next few months we will have 2 CW- old crop oats competing with the new production in September. This is never a good thing. The millers don’t want them as they are often dull looking and have a stale odour. I don’t get why the Mom doesn’t want musty Cheerios for Johnny.  That being said I don’t think the mills feel they need to buy acres at this time. I do know from my conversations with many oat growers there will be significantly less acres of oats going in the ground this spring.

It seems the markets generally have settled down from the craziness of post harvest. We haven’t been seeing 50 cents a bushel swings in the futures nearly as often. Let’s hope this is a continuing trend. It will make it much easier for producers to make decisions instead of just reacting to the dramatic changes. I have been asked by several producers what I think will happen going forward. If nothing else, I have learned from these markets it is best to keep my thoughts to myself. That being said, anytime you are looking for help with price discovery don’t hesitate to contact one of our brokers (see list at the end of the email) spread across all three provinces.

We are seeing oats drifting lower, yellow and green peas staying steady, feed barley moving up off the lows which is a good thing. Since I work with mainly MB and Eastern SK producers these are the prices we are seeing in these locations. Reed will add some prices from AB.

Yellow peas - $12.00 FOB farm Virden MB
2 CW oats -$4.00 FOB Storthoaks SK
Feed wheat $10.85 FOB farm Oakburn MB
Feed barley $7.75 FOB farm Minnedosa MB
Feed green peas $11.70 FOB farm Fairlight SK

Prices we were seeing in Alberta last week:

Feed Oats - $4.05 FOB Calmar AB
Barley  - $8.25 FOB Calmar AB
            - $8.75 FOB Hussar AB
Brown Mustard - $1.15/lbs FOB Medicine Hat AB
CPS Wheat - $11.75 FOB Didsbury AB
Yellow Peas - $12.00 FOB Milk River AB

That’s it for another month. We hope we have some good news next month but who knows.

Till then, farm safely and enjoy some down time with your family.




Richard Chambers
Marketer - Brandon, MB
204-729-1354 - Office
204-761-8320 - Cell
richard@qualitygrain.ca