From Agrimoney:
Malting barley price 'anomaly' to disappear
So the barley growers get the point the price is making, "Grow something else". They do, the giant heat belch from the coming El Niño plays havoc with the crop and prices for the 2015 harvest start rising.The relatively cheap price of malting barley left from last year's harvest appears anomalous, despite the large stocks still left to use, Evergrain said, as it nudged higher its forecast for the 2014 harvest.
Old crop malting barley is trading - at E205 a tonne in the benchmark French export Moselle market, and at about £195 a tonne in the UK – at discounts of some E20 and £17-20 a tonne respectively to values being offered for grain from the 2014 harvest.The gap appears a reflection of the large supplies left over from the last harvest, when EU production, at 9.33m tonnes, represented a surplus of 1.38m tonnes over demand, on Evergrain estimates."There is still plenty of malting barley from last year available," said Matthias Wree, managing partner at the Swiss-based malting barley trading house.'Prices will converge'However, this surplus may find willing buyers, thanks to its strong specifications, as well as its price discount to new crop."Last year's crop is of very good quality. Maltsters would prefer to use it for the next five years if they could," Mr Wree told Agrimoney.com.Indeed, they may stick with old crop supplies for a few weeks longer than normal, rather than switching to grain from the 2014 harvest with "unknown" specifications.The result will likely be "that prices of old crop malting barley and new crop converge", he said....MORE
Then the temperature spike recedes, Europe goes cool and wet for the 2016 crop, an ergot infestation spreads from rye to barley, the pseudo-LSD effects strike particularly hard in Bavaria and all of a sudden you have Bürgerbräu Keller, 1923 all over again.
As I said, Katastrophe.
