Grain markets fell this week, but some showed signs of improvement towards the weekend.

360,000t of wheat are on their way to Egypt this April. 50% of this wheat will come from France, while the remaining 50% is divided equally between Russia, Ukraine and Romania.

This low US wheat price, as well as competitive prices from Russia, also contributed to a drop in the MATIF wheat price.

LIFFE

LIFFE wheat (March) closed at £165.55/t on Monday (February 18) and dropped as far as £162.55/t on Wednesday (February 20). It recovered somewhat on Thursday (February 21) to £164.70/t and remained at this price in Friday (February 22) afternoon.

MATIF

In a two week period MATIF wheat for March dropped by almost €10/t. On February 7, the price stood at €202.00/t. By Wednesday of this week (February 20) it had hit €192.75/t.

On a positive note it climbed back to €195.00/t on Thursday (February 21) and sat at €196.75/t on Friday (February 22) afternoon.

CBOT

CBOT wheat was similar. It dropped across the week, but recovered little by the weekend. Finishing at 504.25c/bu on Monday (February 18) it hit a low of 480.75c/bu on Wednesday (February 20), before reaching 486.50c/bu on Thursday (February 21).

FOB Creil (two-row malting barley)

The FOB (Free On Board) Creil price for two-row malting barley finished last week (February 15) at €181.00/t, dropped to €179.00/t on Tuesday (February 19) and recovered somewhat to €182.00/t on Wednesday (February 20).

This is down more than €10/t from the start of the month when it was trading at €192.50/t (February 1).