By Alice McFarlane

Oat price outlook improves

Jun 2, 2020 | 3:31 PM

The pandemic has created a surge in demand for oat products. This in turn could mean better prices for oat farmers.

Grain Millers Yorkton manager of procurement Scott Shiels said oat products have been popular.

“Definitely one of those stapes people need whether they’re baking oatmeal cookies or cakes or just having oatmeal in the morning,” Shiels said. “We’ve seen cereal companies and the bar manufacturers, they’re all still pushing as well because ready to eat products are still flying off the shelves.”

Shiels said oat prices have reacted to the demand with an uptick in old crop pricing with Grain Millers paying $4 a bushel for summer delivery of oats.

“We haven’t seen $4 oats in this area for a while and even new crop has pushed higher, up over $3 into the new year. It’s attractive pricing for farmers and definitely to the point, especially in this area, where we see great yields and great quality oats. Those kinds of dollars can make oats a profitable crop for growers in the area,” Shiels said.

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With seeding nearing completion and the likelihood of empty oat bins by this fall, Shiels predicted at least a 10 per cent increase in oat acres this year.

“Some Ag Canada numbers say five to six per cent increase. I’m sticking hard with 10,” he said. “There were some issues last year with getting the crop off and those acres are getting late to be seeded to other crops so we could see some of those going into oats.”

Shiels added many acres in southern Manitoba were going to be seeded to corn but now it may be too late for that and farmers are going to be looking at other cereals like wheat, oats or barley.

“We’d like to see it go into oats, of course. That’s very selfish of me but the more oats the merrier,” he said.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF