Feed weekly outlook: Prices likely to hold firm after CP stoppage

MarketsFarm — Feed prices have remained fairly steady over the last week and are likely to continue to do so in the coming week, according to Erin Harakal, senior trader for Agfinity at Stony Plain, Alta.

“I don’t see anything drastically changing in the next week,” she said.

Harakal added there was nervousness in the western Canadian feed industry when a work stoppage at Canadian Pacific Railway began Sunday.

Prior to the work stoppage, those in the feed industry warned there was perhaps one to two weeks’ worth of corn available. With last summer’s drought having caused a sharp reduction in barley and wheat production on the Prairies, corn imports from the U.S. have been necessary. With that, CP had set up a program to supply that U.S. corn since so many of the delivery points are already on their lines.

However, the CP stoppage came to a quick end Tuesday as the company and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference agreed to seek binding arbitration and resumed operations.

The weekly export sales report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed for the week ended March 17 that accumulated corn sales to Canada stood at more than 2.14 million tonnes. A year ago they were a little under 295,000 tonnes. Outstanding sales were just short of 1.4 million tonnes for this year compared to about 291,000 tonnes 12 months ago.

With the volatility in futures, largely caused by the war in Ukraine, Harakal noted local feed prices most often do not react quickly to any changes, at least not for a few days.

Feed barley prices were about $435 per tonne for April movement out of Lethbridge, she said, with wheat around $435-$440. She quoted corn at about $460/tonne.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.