The French milling wheat price had shown small improvements since the start of January, but was back down slightly this week.

A slight drop in the euro and dollar may have helped this last week.

The Matif price for December 2026 closed at €203.25/t on Friday, dropped to €201/t on Tuesday and on Wednesday afternoon it was in the green at €201.75/t.

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Maize and oilseed rape were also in the green on Wednesday. November maize was at €194.75/t, down slightly on last week.

French oilseed rape for November was at €461/t, up €6.25/t on Friday’s close. Supply continues to be ample around the world, according to reports.

The International Grains Council released a report last week in which it said: “Total grains (wheat and coarse grains) output is rising faster than forecast previously.

“Including upgraded outlooks for maize (mainly the US, China), wheat (Argentina, Canada) and barley (Canada, Australia), the world production estimate is up by 31m t compared to late-November, at a record 2,461m.”

Looking at the estimates for production, trade, consumption and carryover were up across grains, wheat, maize and rice.

Soybean carryover was the only figure that was down, showing the stocks that are out there.

The report also said that while an additional 16m tonnes might move to consumption, almost the same amount might move to year-end stocks.

Malting barley

The Free-On-Board Planet malting barley price for next autumn was reported at about €208/t this week.

It has been dropping steadily, but did have a small climb in October and November, but returned to a downward trend since the end of November.

Spot prices for malting barley in France were below this at €185 to €195.75/t this week.

Native prices

At home, there looks to be poor demand for almost all grain.

We heard for months that there is no demand for oats or beans, then wheat and this week we heard of low demand for barley, but we must take these things in context as well.

Feed manufacturers look to be well supplied into the spring having bought ahead, so demand will come again.

However, some of those feed mills continue to function almost completely off the boat, so something needs to change to ensure Irish grain is not left in sheds.

Dairygold released prices this week. They remain unchanged since the last offer at €190/t for green feed wheat, €180/t for green feed barley and €445/t for oilseed rape.