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Straw merchants indicate demand has eased during March, helping to stall the upward momentum on prices from earlier this spring.
Price quotes are holding steady at around £200/t for barley straw in 8x4x3 bales imported from England with imported wheat straw trading around £190/t. Straw availability has been an ongoing issue since early autumn throughout the island of Ireland, pushing many merchants to source in Britain to meet client orders.
However, straw reserves in Britain are running low after unprecedented demand from Irish merchants, with reports of barley straw now completely exhausted in England.
Wheat, oat and rapeseed straw is available, although quality is extremely variable depending on whether bales were wintered under cover or not. Local merchants also indicate buying trends have changed in recent weeks with farmers taking a conservative approach when placing orders and only purchasing what they think might be needed to get to turnout.
Diesel
Meanwhile, farmers ordering fuel are advised to price around for the best deal with quotes earlier in the week for an order of 2,250 litres ranging from 75p to 77.7p/l, excluding VAT.
Crude oil prices rose above $80/barrel in late February, but have eased to $78 in recent days, leaving prices on par with late January.
Price quotes for DERV are generally steady at around the 120p/l mark, excluding VAT.
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