Grain Today - March 11, 2024

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]