No UK Intervention Offers This Week
For the week of 7-13th May there were unsurprisingly no offers put up to place barley into intervention at the princely sum of GBP90.97/tonne, minus adjustments, according to the RPA.
A total of 175,859 MT has so far been put up for offer, with cumulative net barley offers standing at 153,052 MT after rejections/withdrawals.
Defra: UK Wheat/Barley Supply And Demand
Defra are out today with their latest UK cereal S&D numbers. They peg UK 2009/10 wheat production at 14.181 MMT and barley output at 6.747 MMT. For wheat that's a decrease of just over 3 MMT, or 18%. The barley harvest is up just over 600,000 MT, or 10%.
For wheat, domestic consumption levels are left relatively flat, and in line with the previous five year average at 13.678 MMT. That's the bit I don't get, their figures, as they state in their notes, take into no account whatsoever for bioethanol production increasing usage.
I know that the Ensus plant at Wilton has been a bit of a stop start affair, but surely they are going to run on something other than fresh air for the first half of 2010?
Even without any extra offtake from Ensus that leaves us with an exportable surplus of 2.161 MMT, 39% down on last season.
For barley, domestic consumption is also seen relatively flat and in line with the previous five year average, at just over 5 MMT. The big difference here however is that increased production, and a large carry-in, sees the exportable surplus rise almost 150% to just over 2 MMT.
I wonder if Ensus can run on barley?
UK Barley Crop Likely Around 6.33 MMT
Yesterday's figures from Defra pegged the English winter barley area at 347,200 ha., and the spring barley area at 424,400 ha. That compares to the HGCA's spring estimates of 356,800 and 421,500 respectively.
The latest ADAS report pegs the winter barley yields at slightly lower than the 5-year average at 6.3 MT/ha. Spring barley yields they say are slightly higher than the 5-year average at 5.4 MT/ha.
That potentially gives us an English winter barley crop of around 2.19 MMT and a spring crop of 2.29 MMT.
Unfortunately Defra have shed no further light on plantings in Scotland & Wales, so we need to refer to the HGCA's spring estimates and tweak them accordingly. Back then they pegged Scottish winter barley sowings at 56,500 ha. and spring seedings at 281,100 ha. Welsh estimates were 3,500 and 25,000 ha. respectively.
It's probably fair to assume that, as in England, there was probably a little less winter and a bit more spring barley sown. So lets run with Scottish winter barley around 50,000 ha. and spring barley of 286,000; in Wales we'll try 2,500 winter and 26,000 spring.
It seems likely that both spring and winter barley yields in Scotland and Wales will fall short of average, if we use 5.0 MT/ha. for spring and 5.5 MT/ha. for winter barley, that gives us a combined Hun-descended production of 1.85 MMT.
The bottom line is a UK (excl. NI) barley crop of 6.33 MMT, around 4% higher than last year's 6.1 MMT.
UK Winter Barley Plantings Down By 58 Percent
Having recently reported UK winter wheat plantings down by around 15%, DEFRA say that only 424,000 hectares of winter barley has managed to get into the ground.
That's a 58% drop on 1 million hectares a year ago.
Rapeseed plantings are just 4% down at 572,000 hectares they say, whilst oat plantings are down by almost a third to 93,000 hectares.
UK: Encouraging winter barley harvest is progressing well
Farmers Guardian -- The winter barley harvesting is going well in the South and Midlands with up to 40 per cent of the national crop now cut, according to Berkshire-based senior consultant, Susan Twining, ADAS.
“There was limited combining activity until the middle of last week, but the dry weather has seen growers in the south making good progress with winter barley,” she said, adding that if the weather held out, the winter barley crop would be ‘pretty much’ cleared by the end of this weekend in southern and Midland areas.
The dry weather has also meant that crops were coming in below 16 per cent moisture, which was keeping drying costs down, she said.
An early indication on yields shows a crop that is average to just above average this year.
“The five-year average for winter barley yields in the South East has been 6.2tonnes/hectare and most yields so far this summer have exceeded that at 6.5 to 7t/ha.”
Further north progress is more limited, with the bulk of the winter barley harvest just beginning this weekend in areas such as the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wolds.
