EU: Malting barley prices pushed up by sharp increase in feed values

French winter malting barley has been pushed up by the sharp increase in feed barley prices, whereas the malting premium still remains rather low, GrainCom said in their latest newsletter on August 3.

Spring malting barley values moved up as well but not in the same pace as feed values. Looking at the current malting barley premium above feed barley and wheat and with regards to the big problems in the European S&D malting barley is actually still too cheap, the GrainCom analysts said.

England and Scandinavia are harvesting now. In England around 30%-40% are harvested with good results so far, but the later planted fields which are potentially more problematic are still to come. Scandinavia is about 50%-60% done so far. The yields are very low and protein contents high. Other quality parameters are ok.

With basically everything as expected it is now up to the market to find solutions for the lower supplies and qualities, which may be done by quality adjustments, higher winter barley usage and maybe third country imports, for example from Argentina, the experts said. When thinking about potential spring barley imports into the EU one thing should be clear: barley should not be exported (as supplies will be needed internally) but this is exactly what is happening now!

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