World: No more premium market of feed barley in the world - analysts

The premium market of feed barley in the world has ended. Feed supplies in the EU were supplemented by large imports of maize and feed wheat, mainly from Black Sea and Baltic Sea origins. The largest feed barley buyer, Saudi Arabia, has abstained from markets since November, because cool and rainy weather in the Arab Peninsula provided for better pastures and an unusually long grazing period, reducing the local barley demand, H. M. Gauger GmbH said in their March report.

Turkey’s barley crop, however, has been reduced from 7.4 to 6.4 mln tonnes by the FAS office in Ankara, and the IGC forecasts a North African feed barley use of more than 6.0 mln tonnes vs. 4.5 mln tonnes in 2017/18.

Iran’s barley import demand is 3.0 mln tonnes, of which 50% are covered by neighbouring Kazakhstan.

Most important, Australia’s barley exports to China are blocked by a price-dumping investigation on Australian barley by the Chinese authorities, taking a large chunk out of the world demand.

China has imported as much malting barley as possible from Australia before the expected introduction of a deposit payment during the time of the investigation. The remaining open demand for crop 2018 barley can be satisfied by Argentina and the EU.

Japan, Vietnam, South Africa, Turkey have a good choice of Australian, Argentinean and EU barley. There are no reports of business, and markets, especially malting barley premiums, are weak, the industry observers reported.

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