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 richard@qualitygrain.ca
0 Comments
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 richard@qualitygrain.ca Good Day,
Well this last month just proves that I know absolutely nothing about the grain markets. Have been brokering for 18 years, grew grain for 35 years before that and no smarter than anyone else. You would think with the Dow and the S&P still climbing that the grain markets would show some stability. Myself and other people in the industry felt that $5.00 for feed barley on farm would likely be the bottom. Wrong again. We are seeing bids of $4.65 and I almost feel certain that we will see $4.50. This will not be good news for barley acres. I would think it will push some cereal acres into oats as they are still at $4.25 to $4.50 picked up for new crop. It feels like this year will be a challenge to chart a profitable plan with prices for grains and inputs where they are. The moisture situation seems to be a real issue all across the prairies. Everyone we talk to is talking about it and I understand why. Not much snowfall and what has come hasn’t lasted with all these plus temperatures. +21 C in Maple Creek SK last week, that is nuts. The good news is that no crop has ever been lost in February but…. we are starting to see a bit of the buyer appreciation of the moisture and old crop price situation. This week in Alberta we saw new crop barley bids nearly $20.00/MT higher than old crop bids for the same area. A bit of information that might be relevant. Several of my customers have called in the last month and asked me about Harvest Grain Marketing. This company is in no way associated with Quality Grain Marketing. As far as dealing with them my thoughts are that if you want to deal with someone who would work, very briefly, with a company then steal all of that company's contacts and leave to start a competitor odds are there will be issues and anything that goes wrong is one you. We have some demand for Old Crop Rye. Seeing $8.00 picked up based on 2 CW specs, slight premium for open pollinated with +85% germ. New crop Yellow Peas we are seeing bids of $9.75 picked up in SW MB and SE Sask. Will be interesting to see where this goes over the next couple months. Milling oats have been filling up quickly with movement now showing Oct-December for $4.30-4.60 picked up western MB. Across AB/MB/SK we are seeing feed bids be pushed further into spring as buyers are happy with their current coverage. Reverting back to new crop barley seeing stronger bids than old crop we traded $6.05 picked up Crossfield AB for Aug/Sept movement and are currently seeing $5.70 picked up in the same area for Feb/Mar movement. Just a quick reminder. If you have canola in bins as of right now it seems that this spring weather in January is causing another round of quality issues. Please check your bins, pull a load, and get it tested. If you see any issues let one of us know and we will help you out with pricing. Till next month, Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell richard@qualitygrain.ca Good Day,
Well, I just put 2024 in the heading for this newsletter. It makes me wonder what changes we will see in the grain industry this year. Last year we went from good strong prices in the winter to much lower prices at harvest. Unfortunately, the trend has continued. We are $20/MT down on feed barley from the harvest prices. This is unusual as we normally get a bit of a bump as winter progresses. So far this January it hasn’t played out that way. Still struggling with US corn moving into Alberta by rail and also by truck into eastern SK and MB. We would see even lower corn prices in MB if there was more truck movement available. Oats have also followed the trend down with many of our buyers covered till April or even June. We have had some buyers in the market at $5.00 picked up for 2 CW milling quality in eastern SK or the very west edge of MB. The spread to feed oats isn’t as big as some years. We have bids in the $4.10 to $4.25 range in the same area. I should maybe take this time to address my pricing. I work out of Brandon. Most of my customers are in MB and eastern SK so that is why I lean hard on those areas when quoting prices. Please forgive me for this. Pulses are the one thing that is holding value. Good bids on both red lentils around $0.37/lbs and green lentils $0.70. We saw a great run up on yellow peas just before Christmas. Topped out at $14.00 in AB, $13.50 in SK and $13.00 in MB. Prices have cooled since then ($11.50 western MB), but I think we have moved a big chunk of the yellows for this crop. This will likely keep prices from dropping too low. So far we haven’t seen the price bump in December translate into better new crop bids to any degree. Green peas are still strong ($17.00) with maples ($24.00) and chickpeas (low 0.50s) holding firm too. I know I sound like a broken record but please keep an eye on your bins. If you haven’t pulled 10% of the bin volume out of them and confirm that all is as it should be. Please do. We have seen many times the first load comes out and is tough, heated or has bugs. This isn’t just in canola either. Rye, malt barley and oats have been a problem. It is likely a good thing that so many yellow peas are moving December through Jan so that we won’t have near the issues this year as has shown up in peas some years. Since the prices for all commodities are lower than they have been for a few years this might be a good time to consider shopping for new crop prices. We are very happy to help you with that. If you would like us to help, just call, Tx or email one of our Brokers and let him know what you are considering growing. It is good to let us know the variety, if spraying with a desiccant at harvest, how many acres, what timeframe you would like for movement and if you require an Act of God clause. This is usually only available on pulse crops commonly at 10 bushels/acre (negotiable). That is about it for this month. Keep checking our weekly price updates and until next month stay safe. Don’t hesitate to call if you have questions or comments. Till next month, Richard Chambers Marketer - Brandon, MB 204-729-1354 - Office 204-761-8320 - Cell richard@qualitygrain.ca |
Archives
May 2024
|