(Resource News International) -- Barley bids in Western Canada have begun to improve and there are ideas that values shouldbe able to hold these levels at least for the time being.
"Essentially cash values for barley have begun to move up in view of seasonal factors," said Gord Mitchell of Mitchell Grain Inc. at Spruce Grove, Alta.
Producers at this time of year begin toconcentrate on spring field work as well as seedingoperations. Marketings of grain in turn are pushed to thesidelines for the time being.
"There would have to a real jump in the cash bid to takethe producer out of the fields at this time of year," Mitchellsaid.
Cash bids for western barley were said to have increasedroughly $5 per tonne over the past week.
End-users of western barley are believed to have slowlycovered their commitments over the past couple of weeks, withcoverage now believed to be to the middle of June.
"The old-crop barley fundamentals appear to be adequatebut as for new-crop, there are concerns that feed barleysupplies are going to be tight," said one cash dealer who did notwant his name used.
Statistics Canada, in its seedings survey released April 24, revealed that producers in Canada were planning on seeding 9.476 million acres to barley in the spring of 2009.That's up from the 9.357 million acres seeded in the springof 2008 and was at the high end of pre-report estimates thatranged from as low as 8.2 million acres to as high as 10 million.
"There is a belief that actual seeded area will be lowerthan what the survey showed as values for the commodity havenot been high enough to encourage producers to seed the crop,"said Keith Ferley, a broker with Union Securities Ltd.
Updated surveys by a variety of elevator companies werealso indicating farmers were planning on seeding lessbarley than what the government report suggested, the cashdealer said.
Cash bids for feed barley delivered to the elevator inSaskatchewan, based on Prairie Ag Hotwire data, currentlyrange from $2.50 to $2.77 a bushel, in Manitoba from $2.52 to$2.83 and in Alberta from $2.36 to $3.59.
On April 24, feed barley bids delivered to the elevator inSaskatchewan had ranged from $2.44 to $2.66 a bushel, inManitoba from $2.52 to $2.94 and in Alberta from $2.48 to$3.59.