Ex-farm rapeseed prices declined from previous year

In Germany, UFOP reports that the volatility of German ex-farm prices of rapeseed was very low over the first four months of the 2017/18 marketing year. Wheras July and August producer prices clearly exceeded the previous year’s level, asking prices remained virtually unchanged in the weeks that followed.

The difference from the previous year ranged between up EUR 22 per tonne in July 2017 and down EUR 20 per tonne at the end of October 2017. At EUR 350 per tonne for rapeseed from the 2017 crop, buyers recently paid around EUR 4 per tonne less than at the time of the, up to now, annual high recorded in mid July. The reason for the price trend was extensive rapeseed imports from Australia, Agrarmarkt-Informationsgesellschaft mbH reported. These imports put downward pressure on prices in Germany. Between May and August 2017, rapeseed imports from Australia rose more than 123 per cent from the same period a year earlier, to 336,367 tonnes. Rapeseed imports from Ukraine actually rocketed 880 per cent to 106,596 tonnes in the same period. Moreover, the recent weakness in prices for rapeseed meal weighed down demand for feedstock.