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Farm-Scape, Episode 2277

The Canadian Wheat Board is predicting tight supplies of feed grains this winter and higher prices.

Canadian Wheat Board weather and crop surveillance director Bruce Burnett reports domestic feed grain markets have rallied in response to tightening supplies.

He notes there's been a couple of developments as harvest has wrapped up that have led to a very tight situation in terms of feedgrain supplies in western Canada.

"The first thing, of course, has been a very early harvest across most of the prairies and very good grades of especially the wheat that was harvested this year.

Basically over 80 percent of the crop on wheat has graded in the top two grades so there's very little supplies of feed wheat available on the prairies.

Coupled with that the latest Statscan report in early October indicated that the barley crop had dropped again in terms of size, negative reaction to the hot and dry weather during the summertime, down to 9.3 million tonnes which again is another drop in feedgrain supplies that is available as well so the combination of both factors has led to this tightening in feedgrain supplies on the prairies."

Burnett notes, while the tight supplies have had an immediate impact on the domestic feed market, the tight barley situation in Canada has had little impact internationally.

However, he says smaller lower quality wheat and barley crops in Europe have tightened the situation there and anticipated reduced barley production in Australia has increased offshore barley prices as well.

He adds the latest US Department of Agriculture corn production forecast dropped from September, which combined with increased use of corn for ethanol will continue to be positive for corn prices.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.