Grain prices continued to increase over the last week. The overall upward trend has now been in place since early March with dips and jumps along the way.

Wheat and maize prices finished up last week and took another lift early this week on global markets, with weather being one of the main driving factors.

Matif wheat for December closed last week at €241/t, up only 50c on the previous week, but it closed at €248.75/t on Tuesday evening.

In the UK markets, November wheat closed last week at £209.15/t and moved to £214.60/t on Tuesday evening, similar to French prices.

Speculators

Dry weather in Russia continues to cause concern for wheat supplies. There were drops in markets last week, as reports noted that speculative traders who have no physical grain to trade, but buy positions in the market and sell before they have to deliver grain, likely sold off some of those positions when rain was forecast, showing the volatility of the market.

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) reported that some of those speculators returned to the market when limited rain fell, leading to an increase in prices again.

The AHDB also reported that: “Russian forecaster IKAR has trimmed its crop forecast from 93m tonnes to 91m tonnes.”

Maize

Maize prices increased over the last week. Wet conditions have slowed down planting progress in the US.

As of 5 May, 36% of maize was planted, 6% behind this time last year and 3% behind the five-year average.

There is also reported flooding in Brazil, where there is also very hot and dry conditions.

In Argentina, the maize production forecast has been cut by 3m tonnes to 46.5m tonnes due to pest damage and weather.

Calculate costs

In this current run of form in the markets, farmers should have their costs calculated and a mark decided on when to consider selling a proportion of grain.

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Spot prices increased with market trends, with reports of €225 to €230/t for November barley. Wheat was reported at approximately €20/t above this, similar to wheat and maize on the continent.

Harvest prices

At home, co-ops followed the rising trend. Tirlán offered suppliers €207/t for green wheat at harvest 2024, €195/t for green barley and €435/t for oilseed rape. Dairygold offered €212/t for green wheat, €192/t for green barley and €435/t for oilseed rape.