I don’t like Cricket

So, after our hosts at Country Week surprisingly published our advert and text from July 2021 entitled ‘Cricket’ in last weeks’ paper. A decision that was taken for reasons only they can explain. But have so far failed to do so. A decision that prompted several phone calls to this office regarding our state of mind, micky taking, and questioning whether we were living in a ‘Time Warp’ we now turn our attention to the ‘Bumper’ that is harvest 2022.

This year’s harvest will for most have set many records. The earliest start and completion. The driest, with sample moistures in wheat and barley recorded down to 10 percent. For some also the biggest, we have weighbridge yields of over ten tonnes per hectare in winter malting barley and astonishingly in spring malting barley also. Wheat yields in places clocking over fourteen tonnes per hectare and occasional oil returns in Oilseed rape at just over 48 percent. It all goes to show that you cannot beat sunshine and mother nature. Given a dry autumn and winter with a gentle spring with only a drop of rain and plenty of blue sky and sunshine, cereal growing would appear easy! Which of course it is not and probably will not be again for another thirty odd years.

Surprisingly, cereal prices have held up rather well. The early start to harvest meant that to a large extent consumers still had several weeks’ worth of old crop grain supply bought, which meant that for those brave souls who like to hold grain to the death end of the trading year, the short-term opportunist market never appeared. Add into the mix that in Yorkshire, numerous commercial stores were still holding wheat delivered to them in April, May, June due to on going problems at one of our local large ethanol plants. Early movement to mill consumption became somewhat tricky for those without pre-harvest sales and farm stores and yards full of new crop grain.

Whilst the quality of the malting barley crop has undoubtedly been one of the best we have ever seen with low nitrogen content and bold grain, the same higher yield, high bushel weight and good yields have diluted wheat protein contents and will condemn some milling/biscuit crops to the feed market.

Looking towards the market, predictions regarding forward pricing are currently purely guess work. We know for certain that we will have to export a larger than expected quantity of feed wheat due to the size of crop. We will also know we will need to import a substantial quantity of Group 1 milling wheat due to our own low proteins.

We know also, and to quote senior industry figure Richard Whitlock, ‘In little more than a year sterling has lost nearly 20 percent of its value compared with the US Dollar. UK ex farm feed wheat would be nearer £200 per tonne today compared with £250 if it were not for this slump.’ But we do not know the on-going economic effects of current Prime ministerial leadership battle and the effects of decisions made moving forward on our UK economy.

We do not know the size of the incoming maize crop. Nor do we know how the Ukrainian Russian conflict will pan out or how many ships will successfully leave the Black Sea ports bringing much needed agricultural commodities to the World market.

What we do know however, is that harvest 2022 feed wheat sold at over £250 per tonne with premiums on top for those with samples and stores that meet the required specifications will have a substantial amount of profit within it.

With apologies to 10CC and Dreadlock Holiday ‘I don’t like cricket, oh no I love it’