Today’s episode sees Chris Davidson discussing the global wheat market, how soya is performing, before touching on mid-proteins and issuing a warning on performance products.

The wheat market has seen a seismic shift over the last week, with May futures breaking the £230T mark. World stocks are now influencing price as demand continues to outstrip supply. For example, we have recently seen Saudi Arabia buy 1.3mT of Black Sea wheat, over double what they originally tendered for and Egypt seem to be doing the same. This has had the knock on effect of pushing prices in the US and EU markets as well. Until we start to see people switching to different grains these prices are like to remain high.

Adversely, soya is still looking competitive. While spot price remains high, there are deals to be done when forward buying for December onwards and certainly for summer and winter 2022. It is worth bearing in mind the spot market will get worse as we approach the Christmas period and logistics problems increase. You need to ensure you have cover on farm.

Finally looking at performance products. It is worth noting the impact of availability on feed grade urea, in much the same way as we’ve seen problems in Fertiliser. At the moment we are looking at 4-6 week lead times as well as high prices. This is not a short term issue and as this is a component of many blends, liquids and minerals this could result in issues with getting what you need onto farm. 

Fats also continue to be an issue, with sporadic deliveries in to the country as shipping continues to be unreliable. It is also worth considering while mineral pricing is set until January, the lead time on getting minerals to farm is increasing. Again make sure you are covered forward and include a buffer to make sure you are not exposed over the difficult winter period.