It has been a good time to have oats to sell.
While prices of several other crops have fallen since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, oats prices have continued to rise.
Oats on the Chicago December futures market rose about 25 cents US per bushel, or about $25 Cdn per tonne during September.
The contract rose about 6.5 cents US per bu. on Sept. 28, the day the U.S. Department of Agriculture lowered its estimate of American oats stocks as of Sept. 1 to 116 million bu., down 23 percent from the same time last year.
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This was big news in a market that had started to show a little weakness earlier in the week when analysts began to talk about short-term needs having been met by imported Scandinavian oats.
It was also interesting that oats prices climbed even though corn prices were falling. Normally, they move in tandem.
USDA reported corn stocks were down more than expected because of record consumption during the summer. However, harvest pressure and the unease hanging over export markets led traders to push down corn prices Sept. 28.
Analysts such as Statcom Ltd. (www.statcom-on-line.com) believe Canadian and American millers have not met all their needs for milling quality oats and may be forced to sweeten bids even more if they want farmers to part with what is in their bins.
With all the coverage of drought and terrorism fallout, we haven’t run much on the bovine spongiform encephalopathy scare in Japan.
On Sept. 22, tests confirmed Japan’s first case of BSE in a Holstein dairy cow. In the week following, Japanese beef sales fell 10-20 percent, according to an analyst quoted in a Reuters News Agency story.
People were mostly avoiding beef raised in Japan and some restaurants were trying to preserve business by advertising they used only beef imported from BSE-free countries. Sales of other meat such as pork were up.
There is no way to know how deep and long term the impact on Japanese beef consumption will be, but for now the situation has the potential to benefit Canadian beef and pork exporters.
It might also open the door to more sales of Canadian canola meal and peas as Japan bans imports of meat and bone meal because it is believed BSE can be transmitted by infected feed.
