UK ex-farm milling oat prices reach 19-month high

Sign up to receive the Weekly Market Report and Grain Market Daily from AHDB. In the latest ex-farm Corn Returns data updated this week, the UK average ex-farm milling oat price reached a 19-month high in January at £252.20/t, up 5.8% from December’s average and up 14.4% from the same month last year. The premium of milling oats over feed oats for January reached £76.70/t, the highest recorded in at least 10 years. It’s worth noting that the milling market, particularly in England, is heavily geared towards contracted supplies. These contracts will have been agreed 12 to 18 months ago, in line with wheat futures markets. As such, the spot ex-farm prices do not reflect the prices paid for all oats. The discount of feed oats to feed wheat is also shrinking, and there is now a firm premium over feed barley. So, why are prices climbing? And what can we expect moving forward? In AHDB’s latest UK supply and demand estimates published last week, total availability of oats for the ...