Early March shows gloriously beautiful weather, which offers ideal conditions for farmers to continue spreading manure. The market clearly responds to this. In the north, prices remain high, while in the south they continue to fall. Meanwhile, according to arable farmers, manure traders are not willing to pay enough for the supply of manure. How does that work?
The continuing good weather is causing many farmers to fertilise, but they often adopt a wait-and-see attitude. Arable farmers hope for an even more favourable time to remove manure with the continuing good weather. There is a catch, especially for early winter crops. If manure is spread before 16 March, these plots must be declared in the combined declaration. Registering these plots is important in order to comply with the regulations. Storage costs are increasing and transport is not going fast enough; especially when manure has to be transported over long distances.
This can cause the disposal costs to differ considerably per province. In Friesland and the Achterhoek, for example, the manure is piling up. The problem here is the shortage of trucks to transport the manure. While some farmers can go cheaply to a neighbour, others face high costs for transport over longer distances. This causes considerable price differences.
Speculations about price structure
There is a clear difference in the price of pig manure and cattle manure. In pig manure, the market is allowed to do its work, while farmers try to lower prices for cattle manure by temporarily not supplying manure. This only creates more tension on the market, which is why some intermediaries believe that prices are too high in comparison. Nevertheless, the market expects that prices will eventually continue to fall, as long as the spreading possibilities remain favourable.
Arable farmers also continue to follow the manure market closely. Just before the spring work begins, manure still has to be spread here and there. There seems to be more speculation about this this year than ever before. There is considerable dissatisfaction among arable farmers, because they have the idea that a lot of money can be made from manure this year. It is a fact that livestock farmers paid €30 or more this winter to remove manure, which arable farmers should benefit from, they believe. However, some intermediaries are not always prepared to pay more than €15 to a maximum of €20 per cubic meter of manure delivered on the headland.
DCA collection contributions
The average price of pig manure in the South of the Netherlands is €35,17 per cubic metre and in the Central Netherlands it is €35,50. The collection fee for cattle manure is €30,50 and €32,50 per cubic metre for the South and the Centre respectively.