Good prices for low quality
The November Pool Return Outlook was released yesterday. Wheat values were mostly down a bit, durum was up a little bit, while the malting barley PRO declined by $7 a tonne as compared to last month. What’s notable about prices this year is that the low grades still have pretty good value. You might not be able to tell from the dreadfully low initial payments, but the lower grades of wheat and durum aren’t going to be discounted as much as usual. The price of feed wheat in Saskatchewan after deducting average freight and handling is expected to be $4.68 a bushel. For the last crop year, the feed wheat price through the CWB is only about $2.19 a bushel. At $4.68, the price of feed wheat this year will better than the price paid in the last crop year for No. 1 CWRS with 12.5 per cent protein. On durum, a No. 5 in the current crop year is expected to be worth $4.57 a bushel. That’s better than the price for a No. 1 CWAD with 14.5 per cent protein in the last crop year. A lot of this year’s wheat and durum crop is in the lower grades. The good news is that those grades are selling at strong prices from a historical perspective. I’m Kevin Hursh.