Argentina: Barley crop forecast slightly down due to minor frost events

With a few minor frost events in Argentina, the RMI Analytics team has reduced slightly its crop estimate for the nation to 4.8 mln tonnes, noting that no further weather impact on crop is expected.

Barley prices continue to move higher in an effort to spark farmer selling but so far with limited success. The lack of liquidity is a limiting factor to trade but still some activity has been reported regarding new malting barley sales. As a reminder, there already is a substantial volume of barley sold by farmers making incremental sales difficult to achieve.

Similar to other regions, the malting barley premium is widening as the upward pressure toward malting barley remains on the firm side while feed barley is rather steady by comparison.