We have now passed the longest day – and the weather continues to be dry and reasonably warm, but nothing like that in the south of England, with some recent heavy rain and temperatures as high as 30°C.
Potato irrigators are being kept busy, cereal and oilseed rape crops are looking well, but harvest is expected to be later than usual because of the slow start to spring.
Covid-19 issues continue to cause problems as we gradually get back to some form of normality, but social distancing rules means that pubs and restaurants cannot get up to full capacity with seat and table numbers, which cuts down demand for food and drink and this does not help our industry.
Brexit issues are causing delays in exports and imports, fruit and vegetable growers are struggling to get enough workers to harvest their crops, and we are having to come to terms with the recent import agreement with Australia, which will likely be the first of many. Farmers will have to stand up and compete as best as they can, so the agricultural industry has a lot to face up to in coming years with lots of uncertain times ahead.
Brexit has already cost Scotland’s economy around £4bn and less trade is being done now than before Brexit on January 1. Recently, HMRC announced a £2bn fall in food and drink exports to the EU in the first quarter of the year and a 90% drop in dairy product sales.
One thing that we cannot manage, or change is the weather which globally continues to cause continual volatility in world market prices. Wheat prices have fallen in recent days, and London wheat futures have fallen again from their highs of recent weeks. 
A change in weather prospects is one of the main drivers for lower US maize and wheat markets with cooler and wetter conditions now arriving which will help their spring drilled crops.
The November, 2021, Liffee new crop feed wheat futures have dropped by more than £7 per tonne from last week, to currently stand at £172. July, 2021, old crop wheat futures stood at £201.70 two weeks ago and are now £18 down at £183.75/tonne. May, 2022, new crop has dropped by £5 as well to £176.95/tonne.
US crops are in desperate need of better weather and more than 40% of the state of Iowa, which is one of their main maize producing states, is now subject to severe drought; as is Dakota, a main wheat growing state. Their winter wheat ratings have dropped to 48% 'good to excellent' and spring wheat is put at 37% which, when compared to this time last year, stood at 81%. Farmers have been reporting that their wheat fields are as bad as they have ever seen them.
Maize 'good to excellent' ratings have dropped by 11% to 58% in Minnesota, and Iowa dropped down by 14% to 63% – the biggest weekly loss of condition in 33 years. These two states represent 27.5% of the total US maize crop.
The recent commodity price drops are due to forecasts for cooler and wetter weather where 30-60mm of rain is forecast next week which will help their crop yields if the rain does come. 
However, the recent fall in prices has also been driven by US maize, which lost more than 12% of its value last week, despite drought there. Also, US markets were affected by speculation that President Biden might allow a reduced blending of maize ethanol into fossil fuels as blenders come under severe financial pressure to meet their targets.
Prices in the States are also coming under pressure with the USDA estimating that over 96m acres of US maize will be planted, compared to the previous estimate of 91.1m acres and this would add a further 20m tonnes to current production estimates. Recently, the US dollar gained over 2% in futures exchange markets which forced the US to lower its prices to remain competitive in the export markets.
The Black Sea wheat producing countries of Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, are likely to export 5% more wheat this year which would be around 66m tonnes, and this despite having a small reduction in wheat production to around 124m tonnes. Russia continues to be the world’s top exporter.
Much of Western Europe is seeing beneficial rain and French winter wheat crop ratings are stable at 81%, well ahead of the 56% 'good to excellent' it achieved last year at this time.That led to EU wheat production estimates being increased to 137m tonnes on the back of better weather conditions throughout Europe over the past month and Germany’s wheat crop next season is also forecast to rise 3.8% to 22.98m tonnes due to better weather. These figures and the anticipated increase in UK wheat production is continuing to pull prices lower.
The EU’s total soft wheat exports are put at 24.7m tonnes so far, in comparison to the 33.3m tonnes exported at this time last season.
The USDA has cut Brazilian maize estimated output by 3.5m tonnes to 98.5m tonnes, but that did not go far enough to see any increase in prices. As before, weather issues there will continue to be key to a change in prices and if it remains dry, we could see prices rise once again. 
The Ukrainian maize crop is forecast at 37.5m tonnes, which is 22% above the five-year average and 30.5m tonnes is due for export which would be 25% above the five-year average. 
Ukraine has done a marketing deal with China, and maize exports from there from last October until April was 7.34m tonnes, up from the 5.5m tonnes exported throughout the whole of the previous year and this arrangement is likely to grow in future. This could help UK grain prices, as reduced Ukraine maize imports could lend support to new-crop barley prices.
China’s pig producers have been encouraged to maintain production levels, despite prices falling below cost of production, as live prices in China have dropped 60% since the start of the year. If prices keep falling, farmers could cut herd sizes, with a potential impact on feed demand.
As a result of the recent hot spell of weather in the south of England, harvest might be earlier than at first thought, but as mentioned earlier, this is not expected to be the case in the north and in Scotland. Scottish old crop barley prices remain at a premium over English prices, but have fallen in line with US wheat and maize futures due to forecast rain, and a stronger US dollar.
The recent much needed rain helped to fill spring sown crops, especially spring barley in the south of England, but continued rainfall in the Black Sea Region is raising quality issues. Meanwhile, the Baltic states are experiencing dry weather, which is not helping their crops.
Beer sales, recently, have been above average given the gradual relaxing of Covid-19 rules and this has seen old crop barley prices remain firm as merchants find themselves short of stocks, and having to go out to the market for more product.
New crop barley is holding its discount to wheat at around £12-£15/tonne and domestic compound feed demand is expected to reduce significantly from crop 2020 as a result of this much smaller price discount to wheat, but given that the price of other raw materials, especially proteins, remain high, good new crop demand is expected for barley.
The drop in the wheat futures market put pressure on new crop bean prices as this crop is now showing benefits of the last few weeks of warm conditions. This past week, feed beans have been sold at £205-210 ex farm and prices are expected to fall as wheat values drop. With a stronger US dollar, there could be demand from Egypt, but farmers may not commit to a sale until the UK bean quality is known, especially with the prospect of another high bruchid level year.
There has been some interest in new crop green peas, recently, with some sales now below £250/tonne ex farm. But, again growers will not be keen to sell until nearer harvest when the crop quality is confirmed.
After a year of rising prices of oilseed rape, a near £50/tonne drop in new crop prices in the past two weeks has dented market confidence. Concerns over low global stock levels are now being replaced by thoughts that stock levels are about to be rebuilt rather than eroded away. 
Due to the recent high prices, a record level of oilseeds has been planted for production in 2021, which is forecast as up by 11m ha this year, compared to a 10-year average increase of just 4m ha, meaning production could rise by 34m tonnes. This includes an extra 20m tonnes of soya to a new record volume of 615.2m tonnes and consumption is forecast to grow by only 19m tonnes, so this will result in oilseed stocks in 2021-22 building up by around 8m tonnes.
Within the oilseeds group, oilseed rape tonnage still looks likely to be tight, even though plantings are forecast to be up by1.3m ha and production up by around 1.7m tonnes. Low opening stocks means it will be tight up to the end of 2021-22, especially in Europe.
Australia is forecast to increase its canola crop by 0.5m tonnes and Canada by 0.4m tonnes. Both these countries export to the EU and the UK. However, a potential recovery in stock levels will mean that prices are unlikely to go any higher in the short-term, unless we get some very poor weather that affects the crop and future yield between now and harvest.
Another factor that pushed up oilseed prices, was insufficient vegetable oil production to meet demand due to a 9% reduction in the sunflower seed crop in Ukraine, Russia and parts of the EU-27 because of poor weather. 
Another factor was the reduced palm oil production, due to Covid-19 resulting in a labour shortage which reduced palm oil production by 2% from previous levels in 2019-20 and the ongoing pandemic, along with heavy rain in south America in the early part of 2021, meant global production only recovered by 1% in 2020-21. 
Global demand for vegetable oils continues to grow and is estimated to rise by 4.1% to 213.0m tonnes for both food and industrial uses. This will push up global vegetable oil prices and create more crush demand for rapeseed, and keep global supplies tight, despite bigger Australian and Indian crops.
Current forecasts show bigger supplies of rapeseed and sunflower seed in 2021-22, along with a recovery in palm oil output and if confirmed, these could be enough to move the market back into surplus and enable some stock rebuilding which could see prices dropping once the crops are harvested.
Stocks of rapeseed and sunflower seed continue to be very low, so the market is very sensitive to any threat to yields, and this is again where the weather comes in to play, and until the crop is in the barn there will still be price volatility until harvest, as no-one knows what the weather is going to do between now and the crop being safely gathered in.