Buyers forced to rely more on securing Irish grain
IFA said up to €164 was paid for green wheat.
Other than covering their priority grain needs, most buyers are waiting for futures markets to collapse, and for carrying costs of grain to fall to realistic levels, before committing to imports, which last year neared one million tonnes of wheat, barley, sorghum, oats and maize.
Harvest progress has been slowed in Ireland by showers, but even worse weather across much of the EU has interfered with harvesting.
Here, up to 90% of the harvest had been cut in much of the southern half of the country, by last weekend.
According to IFA, yields have been variable, but generally 0.3 to 0.5 tonnes per acre behind average.
Spring barley yields averaged about 2.4t; winter barley about 3.1t, and winter wheat a disappointing 3.7t/ac. Across the winter wheat yield range of 2.7 to 4.8t, continuous wheats had been especially disappointing. Winter oats has averaged 2.8t, according to IFA, despite the very cold winter.
Low moisture contents have enabled much on-farm grain storage.
Meanwhile, some farmers in the Baltic countries were this week considering giving up on the harvest, after weeks of unusually bad weather.
The British wheat harvest has also been hit by bad weather, and estimates for the rain-delayed German harvest have been cut 13% this week.
These trends have added to the market dominating sharp turnaround in Russia, from being a leading grain exporter to become a net importer, due to the effects of a heatwave. However, the news from there is better — timely rains will help in drought-threatened winter crop sowings.
Overall, Irish growers are benefiting from harvest uncertainty, forcing grain buyers to rely more heavily than usual on securing Irish harvest grain. Reports that half of Britain’s exportable surplus of 1.5m tonnes of wheat may already have been sold have also pushed buyers into the Irish harvest.
