Country News
Argentina: Traders and farmers may be overly optimistic for their preferred candidate, Mauricio Macri, in this Saturday’s presidential election runoff. The polls were wrong in the first round of voting and they currently show Macri up by only around five points over Daniel Scioli, with 11 percent voters still undecided. (Bloomberg)
Britain: The UK signed a five year agreement to supply China with 750 KMT of malting barley for the growing beer industry. (Reuters)
Iraq: ISIS has geographic control over 40 percent of Iraq’s barley crop, which unlike oil fields, is not easily destroyed by air campaigns. The jihadist group can make hundreds of millions of dollars via its control of agriculture. (Bloomberg)
Ukraine: Feed barley prices increased ($133-146/MT bid) this past week for domestic use and even higher ($154/MT) near ports as exporters gave processors stronger competition for supplies. FOB offers were unchanged. (WPI)