EU Wheat Close

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 18:33 | Categorized as

23/11/10 -- EU wheat futures closed mixed Tuesday with expiring Nov10 London wheat unchanged at GBP167.25/tonne and Nov11 London wheat also unchanged at GBP143.50/tonne. Jan11 Paris wheat closed EUR3.00 higher at EUR214.00/tonne and Nov11 Paris wheat was up EUR2.50 to EUR193.75/tonne.

Paris wheat gained as the euro fell on continued concerns over Irish debt, despite news of a bank bailout yesterday, and ideas that other members of the bloc are waiting in the wings in need of similar assistance.

Bloomberg say that the French Offre et Demande Agricole estimate winter soft wheat plantings there will be up 6.2% to 5.2 million hectares, the largest area in more than twenty years, as farmers there look to capitalise on soaring world prices.

Following a similar trend to that in the UK, winter barley area will decline 12% to just over 1 million hectares, the lowest level in sixteen years, they add.

Winter OSR plantings rose 6.9% to 1.55 million hectares this year they say, adding that France may overtake Germany as Europe's largest rapeseed producer in 2011. German sowings are seen down on wet weather at planting time.

Brussels will begin auctioning off last season's EU-27 barley intervention stocks tomorrow.

The BBC are forecasting much colder weather to arrive for most of the UK, Germany and northern France starting tomorrow. Winter crops here are seen entering dormancy in pretty good shape.

The same doesn't seem to be true for America, the world's largest wheat exporter, where the USDA last night pegged only 47% of the crop in good/excellent condition, and 16% rated as poor/very poor.

In the top producing US state of Kansas poor/very poor is now rated at a rather large 26%. Round my straight talking neck of the woods we call that a large steaming pile of pooh. A steaming pile we could very well do without in fact.

Who remembers my "They'll be putting bread on eBay next" post from Jan 2009? That looks quite prophetic now, with the benefit of a large slice of hindsight of course: Nogger's Take On Everything - They'll Be Putting Bread On eBay Before Long