Barley: Expect a significant reduction in to-be-harvested areas for next season
February 2, 2018 at 8:57 AM ,
Starry Night Ltd.
Barley: responding to prevailing regional trends
BULGARIA. Although a person could not step twice in the same river, local farmers seem to have quite well analyzed through past and present build-ups of regional market forces. Comparing regional behemoths’ market clout and production/export potentials with local ones, farmers have decided to respond to stubbornly persistent low price past trends and tough regional competition, which, moreover, seem to prevail through the current marketing season, and might even slip into the upcoming one. As a result, farmers expect for the upcoming season to stand before an area-to-be harvested of 109,800 ha or by 16.6% lower from that of last year. Yet, they have a few seasons to go through first before entering the fields, and depending on the Winter, which has been characterized by quite low temperatures, with almost no sufficient snow cover, and/or unusually high temperatures at some periods for the season, they actually might combine a lesser area. Anyhow, the cut in planted acreages is expected not to damage market positions outside the EU.
|
Harvest 2017-18 (01.07.2017 - 26.01.2018) units in MT |
|
|
Beginning availability |
22,000 |
|
Aggregate output |
633,393 |
|
Imports |
5,314 |
|
Domestic consumption |
180,000 |
|
beer production |
45,000 |
|
feed |
135,000 |
|
Exports to the world |
271,121 |
|
to EU markets |
243,332 |
|
to rest of the world |
27,789 |
Source: Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture
Tough regional competition from countries such as Russia, Ukraine and even Romania have exerted pressure on exported quantities to non-EU markets while the trend to EU destinations have been persistently strong since the beginning of the marketing season. Indeed, export activities kicked in quite strong after completion of harvest while with the passage of time -- the country is a small regional producer of barley on a yearly basis -- shipped volumes abroad started to level off.
In the realm of the domestic market
The lower export rate to no-EU markets, together with a higher local feed demand, has actually contributed for an increase in the consumption of barley, as a substitute of wheat, in the livestock sector. By the 26th of January 2018, the rise accounted to close of 11% higher from that of last years. Annually, the country imports small quantities of barley - mainly for malt production, as during the previous marketing season, total imports accounted to 2.25% of aggregate output - 697,787 mt.
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