FEED wheat values have come under further pressure throughout the course of the last month as news and rumour struggles to compete with the fact that the UK is competing for trade in a hugely oversupplied market.

Old crop feed wheat for spot collection is currently valued in the region of £115/T ex-farm, a decline of an estimated £25/T since the beginning of the year.

The strength of the pound against the euro appears to be the grain markets biggest difficulty at the minute and is limiting our export opportunities; European wheat priced in euro’s is comparatively cheaper to UK wheat for foreign importers.

Elsewhere, Russian wheat exports appear to be significantly slowing following the imposition of a 15 per cent export tax on all grain exports at the beginning of February. In the first two weeks of February just 225,000/T of wheat was exported from Russia; they have been known to export as much as 1.15 million tonnes in a fortnightly period before.

The on-going political tension here is also giving the market some cause for concern. While news reports would suggest that a ceasefire is now in place, other internet sources claim that this simply isn’t the case. Either way the situation is doing little to inspire the grain market at the minute.

Meanwhile, the South American harvests are now well underway and despite some initial weather concerns, maize corn yields for both Argentina and Brazil are on track for good production this year. Soy bean yields are also good and although we have seen some issues regarding the logistics of transporting such a large crop to the ports, the promise of a 95 million tonne crop remains and is capping the value of European OSR values.

For those of you with OSR still left in the shed, £250/T ex-farm for spot collection currently looks like a realistic offer. If you are looking to make a sale before the end of April, this should be considered as a selling opportunity given the imminent arrival of the South American crop into the market place.