The Canadian Wheat Board will accept all the wheat, durum and feed barley offered under Series A contracts.
Farmers who belong to Manitoba Pool Elevators applauded wheat board chief commissioner Lorne Hehn, who made the announcement at the pool’s annual meeting last week.
Hehn said the wheat board plans to export or move into export position 85 percent of its wheat and barley supplies for 1997-98 by the end of May to take advantage of higher prices.
He told farmers the board has moved 30 percent of its projected exports for the year already, and plans to be half done by the new year.
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Crops yielded above average across the Prairies this year, and quality is generally average to above-average.
“This strong export program will mean June through September, 1998 will be much quieter than what we experienced this past crop year,” Hehn said.
The wheat board expects Canada to export 27 million tonnes of the six major grains this year, up slightly from last year.
Low supply
He noted farmers have not signed up much feed barley with the board, and so it doesn’t have much to sell into markets in Saudi Arabia and Japan.
The board’s executive director of marketing said new players in the world feed barley market have been pushing down world prices slightly.
Adrian Measner said Russia and Turkey have been exporting barley, cutting into markets traditionally shared by Canada, the United States, the European Union and Australia.
