Bread prices set to rise as farmers drop wheat for cheaper-to-grow animal feed

CONSUMERS may have to pay more for their bread as farmers ditch wheat to produce cheaper-to-grow animal feed.

A rise in the price of fertiliser has made growing more labour-intensive wheat for human consumption increasingly expensive, according to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).

A Russian blockade of the Ukrainian port of Odesa has left around 22 million tons of grain in silos there, severely affecting global food supplies.

The NFU says farmers plan to produce animal feed-grade wheat as it is cheaper to produce and buyers are willing to pay more for it at the moment.

Lack of Uk-grown wheat could lead to higher prices in the shops. In March the cost of a loaf was predicted by experts to rise by a fifth and ministers have been urged to offer financial incentives to farmers to encourage them to plant milling wheat in the coming months. There are fears a failure to do so could reduce consumer choice.

Minette Batters, president of the NFU, said there was a “real danger in this world that farmers actually just decide to produce wheat to feed pigs and poultry because they know they’re going to be guaranteed a good price.”

She added: “That will leave the bread market short. We must be making sure that farmers are not just producing feed wheat, and that we are incentivising them in those decisions that will be made in the next few months.”

Animal feed prices were about 40 per cent higher in March than a year ago, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), driven by a supply squeeze due to the war in Ukraine. The country is the world’s fifth-largest exporter of wheat, its top exporter of sunflower oil and its fourth-largest corn exporter.

Rising animal feed costs have rippled across the UK food sector, increasing pork and chicken prices and forcing restaurants to reduce menu options.

Wheat grown for animal feed is of a lower grade than that used to make flour. Government figures suggest that the crop accounts for around a third of individuals’ daily food energy intake.

Cranswick, a sausage maker, yesterday said the Government was not doing enough to help the pig industry with rising costs.

Adam Couch, its chief executive, said: “The rapid escalation in feed costs, together with other inflationary pressures and the well-publicised shortage of skilled butchers resulting directly from the Government’s post-brexit immigration policy, has put the pig producer sector under severe and unsustainable strain.”

The company has asked the Government to reduce the amount of wheat used to make biofuels for its net-zero efforts, given the situation.

Mr Couch said: “More needs to be done by government in the coming months to ensure that we have a viable long-term pig farming industry.”

Wheat prices have risen by 97 per cent in a year, piling pressure on bakeries to pass on their extra costs.

In March, analysts suggested that a 75 per cent rise would lead to a sharp increase in shop prices.