By Guy Smith
As I write, there’s chat on social media about arable farmers refusing to load out milling wheat in April as some sort of protest. I’m not sure if it’s an April Fool, but nonetheless it does catch the attention and maybe that’s the whole point.
As a milling wheat grower it was easy for me to heed this strike call, not just because I was keen to show solidarity, but also because I’d already cleared the grain store before Christmas.
Usually I do have several loads to market after Easter, but this year I was keen to see the 2024 cereal harvest moved early in case a certain fungal sclerotium reared its nasty purple head and was spotted at intake, meaning my milling wheat would then eat up road-miles and haulage charges in search of a colour sorter.
Mercifully and somewhat miraculously, I’ve somehow survived the season with only one rejection. I’m not sure whether this was due to a divine hand guiding the sampling spear, or whether my paranoia had exaggerated the problem in my mind in the first place.
It reminded me of the old adage – ‘the harder you look, the more you find’. Four months on, just to add to my smugness, I’m conscious that my determination to get the 2024 harvest sold and moved early had proven a piece of marketing brilliance, as I caught market highs and avoided the later market lows. However it should be noted here, that like a lot of my self-acclaimed brilliance, it was actually a strike of pure luck.
But maybe my marketing smugness should come under review. Maybe a so-called ‘milling wheat strike’ will send the market into orbit as millers and bakers do everything in their financial power to prise open grain store doors. After all, as we know it only takes a 20% reduction in global wheat production to double its price. It was only three years ago in 2022 that milling wheat prices nearly doubled on the back of bad weather and a nasty war in Eastern Europe.
Which brings me to an idea that’s been doing the rounds for many years now in rural pubs in eastern England – that being, if farmers across the world could somehow limit wheat production then they’d have some control of the prices they receive.
It’s not unknown in other commodities such as oil, where the oil-exporting nations try to control the price of crude through OPEC. It’s a nice idea that smacks of a pipe dream. This current attempt by farmers to limit supply could be an interesting exercise in market control, but it’ll only bear fruit if enough farmers get involved – and there’s the rub.
This article was taken from the latest issue of CPM. For more articles like this, subscribe here.
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