Feed grain prices in Western Canada slide on weather

Aug 02, 2019

Outlook could change if slow crop development leads to frost damage

Improving crop conditions have weighed on western Canadian feed barley prices over the past month as attention turns from the tight old-crop supply situation to the upcoming harvest.

“Prices are dropping every day it rains,” Mike Fleischhauer of Eagle Commodities in Lethbridge, Alta. said last week. He said barley prices have come off by as much as $35 per tonne over the past month.

“A month ago, there wasn’t much for rain and crops were looking like they would dry up,” said Fleischhauer. Farmers were also reluctant sellers given the uncertain production prospects. While the weather situation has shifted and there are now pockets of too much rain, he said crops were now thought to be doing reasonably well for the most part.

The harvest is only a few weeks away for the earliest-planted fields.

“All of our customers in the feedlot alley are all thinking the same thing — that ‘prices will go down’,” said Fleischhauer. As a result, they are out of the market or bidding low, while farmers are still looking for higher prices.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.