This year’s harvest of grain for bird feed was truly a bumper crop with record yields recorded across most varieties. All our available barn space is filled to the rafters with grain and every nook and cranny (including a few trailers!) seems to be holding grain of some sort.
The Big yields often result in falling prices and unfortunately this is the case again this year. Currently wheat is trading at £110/tonne – compared to the £200/tonne we were being paid a couple of years ago. Our plan is to store our grain for a little longer this year in the hope that the prices will improve throughout the year. If everyone could buy an extra packet or two of biscuits a week I am sure that would help!
Storing grain well so that you keep the quality is a skill and this year we have made more improvements to our grain store to make it more water-tight by cladding the side wall (which takes the brunt of the rain) with tin which apparently won’t ever need painting.
This increased demand on our storage space for bird food has had a knock on effect on our warehousing so we are building a mezzanine floor in our packing shed which will give us greatly increased storage capacity for our bird seed business. I should be able to fill the space with some nice new brid feeders and other products!
