Opinion: Input prices remain static despite likely poor crops
Mike Neaverson © Tim Scrivener Think back to the first few days of February.
The long-range forecast mentioned 14mm of gentle rain, and some of our better fields had dried sufficiently for our dualled-up combi drill to make something resembling a decent seed-bed for the spring wheat.
My urgency to get the Mulika in came as a result of bitter experience.
The weather had already beaten us to it in mid-October for the establishment of winter wheat, and if we missed this weather window now, it might well be April before things would go again.
History says that this would be just in time for the subsequent drought, gout fly, yellow rust or ergot to finish the job off. But often, it’s a combination of all four.
See also: Opinion – it’s been another ‘perfectly average’ harvest
About the author
Fast-forward six weeks – through 350% of our average February rainfall – and you can imagine the outcome.
Some fields are so wet that the neighbours would be forgiven for thinking that we’ve started a heron sanctuary.
At what stage do we give up and just accept what is going to be an embarrassingly poor crop?
In desperation, I called a friend in the grain trade to discuss whether we should drill some of it again with spring barley, which – with a level of disappointing certainty – will end up being tipped in the feed heap.
I remember the grossly paraphrased conversation as follows.
“I don’t want the *insert expletive here* stuff!”, he said. “But if I really did have to give you a bid, it’s going to be £130/t delivered.”
“And when I tip it at 15.2% in late September,” I said, “will you still pull my pants down with last year’s drying charges?”
“Oh absolutely,” he said. “As much as it’s going to bite me in the long term, you’d be better to stick some bird feed on it.”
I thanked him for his input, which I suspect might have been a lot more nuanced and a lot less sweary had he been our actual buyer.
Then I politely declined his only half-joking attempt to flog me some spring barley seed for nearly £700/t and we got talking about the rugby.
If many in the supply trade have already woken up to just how dire things are out there, you certainly wouldn’t know it from input prices.
With crops looking so poor and planted areas so low, there shall be no expensive insurance rates on my fungicide recs.
There’s more products to choose from too, so you’d think that prices would be tumbling to compete for market share.
But amazingly, input prices of fertiliser, sprays and machinery are remaining largely static.
On combinable farms across the country, this coming harvest is likely going to be one of the worst for a generation.
We are lurking in the doldrums, ogling at herons, and trying to sell as little grain as we can at prices well below the cost of production.
My unqualified view is that we are in the “correction” phase of supply and demand. It might take a couple of years, but £200 will be seen again.
In the meantime, I think many in policy are wrongly expecting diversifications to sustain the farming habit, which got me thinking.
There are all sorts of exotic meats at our local farmers’ market. Would anyone like to try a lovely bit of heron?