With big stockpiles from last year’s harvest, a weak rouble and relatively high global prices, it looks like the large amount of Russian wheat being released onto the global market has played a significant role in the recent downturn in grain prices.

With record monthly exports from the rogue state widely predicted to continue from now until the end of the season, other than a significant increase in the cost of insuring the shipments, it would appear that little is being done to stop the aggressors taking advantage of the situation.

Combining this with the latest AHDB figures pointing to a comfortable supply situation on the home front, it looks like it’ll take more than the effects of December’s Arctic winter on the US crop to bring about any major turn-round in the current slide in grain prices.

But while UK growers might be looking at a bit of stagnation in what we were becoming used to viewing as a bull market for wheat, we’re not doing as badly as our counterparts in Australia, who have been struggling with wet weather in the run up to and during their harvest period – a situation which saw thousands of acres almost ready-to-cut crop submerged for some time.

Even although the worst of the floods there have receded – allowing a chance to grab a big bite of their harvest – the deluge left a sting in the tail for many in the main grain-growing areas in the east of the country.

Like the rest of us, growers in Oz have been watching the fair old slide in the future prices for wheat over the past month or two, but the actual price they are being offered for their grain has been hit far harder due to quality issues following the floods.

In this country, there’s often a feeling that there’s some massive collusion in the grain trade in order to find a new fault every year which allows them to discount payment rates. Many growers are of the belief that in a year of plentiful supplies, it is almost guaranteed that there will be some problem with loads delivered to the malting being subjected to deductions – be it for nitrogen levels, screenings, splits or pre-germination issues, it often feels that there’s something new every year.

But this year, Australian growers have gone even further, claiming that the country’s entire grain-buying system is broken. In a year when the cost of growing the crop skyrocketed, with fertiliser and sprays spiralling upwards, the devastation caused by the floods, then followed by the price collapse, it has been difficult for growers to thole.

The president of New South Wales Farmers, Xavier Martin, said that the poor prices were rubbing salt into the wounds of those who were salvaging their crops. Admitting that it was going to be difficult to see prices remain high after bumper crops over the past two years, he added: “But what was unexpected – and frankly unwarranted – has been the unfairly discounted prices. The enormous difference between Australian and international grain prices is simply unacceptable.”

He called for a serious scrutiny of what he termed the ‘deregulated and dysfunctional’ grain trade in Australia where the bulk of the buying power is firmly held in the hands of a few major international companies: “We must have an end to the unfair marketing and crumbling infrastructure that tips the balance in favour of big business and multi-national middlemen – and that’s why we are once again calling for an official inquiry into the grain trade.”

However, while another commentator on the Aussie grain trade agreed prices were unnecessarily low, he put a fair part of the blame on the selling behaviour of the farmers themselves – stating that as long as growers accepted the bids being made by the grain companies, then these big institutions were unlikely to up their offers.

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The trader said that, in his view, the simple fact that growers were willing to sell at the prices bid to them was the main reason for Australian grain prices standing well below world market levels: “It’s the buyers right to act commercially. This means that if their advertised bids keep getting filled with grain sales, the bids aren’t likely to improve. Growers can’t expect buyers to pay more than they need to for the grain offered to them.”

I guess that’s a lesson we should probably heed in this country as well – where the number of companies buying our grain has shrunk to a worrying degree.

So it might be something worth bearing in mind as we look to tie up contracts for next harvest’s crop – and just like the Australian buyers, we should remember that we hold some of our marketing strengths in our own hands.

Maybe that shouldn’t only apply to the headline price we receive? For better or worse, there’s no getting away from the fact that the sustainability of our produce – and the production methods which we use – are going to be of increasing importance as we move into the future.

This is a fact which has already been well recognised by the grain buyers, who are increasingly looking for commitment to such an approach from their growers.They see this as a key requirement in meeting the increasingly high demands being made by processors and retailers further down the food chain.

The big supermarkets, for instance, are happy to jump on the latest fad if it gives them the smallest opportunity to increase sales by keying into the 'virtue signalling' of some of their customers, a fashion which has become so prevalent in our 'look at me', social media-driven society.

If you haven’t heard of virtue signalling before, it’s the desire to make a big show of opinions or sentiments aimed at publicising the good character, social conscience or the moral correctness of the individual or organisation expressing them – usually in a self-serving and disingenuous way.

I guess it’s what drives a lot of people who make a big song and dance about going vegan for January – while, at the same time, planning their summer jaunt by jet to a corporate-owned holiday complex in some sun-kissed part of the world where the cheap labour of the natives can be exploited.

Another example is the song and dance which big businesses often make about the goods and money which they make available to various charities – while at the same time hiding the fact that they are using every trick in the book short of outright fraud to avoid paying the taxes which should actually be underwriting these social responsibilities.

Please excuse the rant – but there is a serious point here as we poise to sign up to new contracts.

That is the very real risk that we will sleep walk into the trap of effectively giving our sustainability credentials away for nothing – for while we’re happy to do our bit to improve sustainability, it has to be remembered that these additional commitments can bring with them a considerable element of extra costs for each tonne of grain produced.

Some of the big grain companies are slipping additional requirements into contracts with the aim of keeping buyers further down the food chain satisfied – but with no recognition for the additional costs and risks which the industry will be asked to take on-board.

Growers will be the ones to carry this can and if we don’t make a stand to ensure that we get some recompense for providing these additional services, the value of producing sustainable crops will be totally swallowed further up the food chain – and stolen from under our noses.

With some contracts already dictating that growers must buy certified seed from merchants 'to ensure traceability” (although I can’t be alone in thinking that outlawing the use of carefully selected home-saved seed significantly reduces traceability) and then to submit their spray and fertiliser records, growers are being stitched up at both ends, being forced to carry all the risks.

All this is particularly galling when you consider that while farmers in the UK – and much of the rest of Europe – are being forced to jump through an increasingly large number of hoops to keep buyers happy and secure a share of the market, double standards somewhere in the global grain trade are seeing wheat from military aggressors like Russia – war crimes and all – being bought up to undercut the trade in sustainably produced grain.