Feed Peas Getting Less Competitive

VANCOUVER - Oct 5/07 - SNS -- International feed pea markets recorded a mixed finish in U.S. dollar terms, with a weaker Euro allowing U.S. parity prices to dip in France and Belgium, while values in the United Kingdom and Netherlands strengthened on the week.

Some strength was also reported in western Canada, where processors needed to lift bids for feed grade peas to maintain price parity with bleached green and yellow peas, with bids for 50% bleached whole green peas still maintaining a premium to feed.

Markets for competing feed ingredients finished the week on a mainly softer note. Expectations next Friday's USDA crop will see an increase in the estimated size of this year's corn crop has weighed on markets during the past week, eroding the price competitiveness of peas from an energy standpoint.

Alaron Trading's Tim Hannagan says the only hope for "any strength (in corn) next week would come from potentially firmer bean trade as some forecasters are calling for a bullish bean number. . . . Though corn yields are coming in higher, there is talk circling that there is areas of concern and lower than expected early yield results in bean fields Central and Southern Illinois, Indiana, North-East Nebraska and Iowa. This could lead to some pre-report trade guesses of a lower production number next Friday, without a bullish mindset into next Friday's report."

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