November continues to be wet and miserable and no late sowing work has been possible either – in contrast to the dry weather in October.

So far, in my part of the Borders, we have not seen any cold, frosty days either, but forecasters are suggesting cold weather is in its way.

Following the US election result, sterling has strengthened to a six-week high and £1 equated to €1.16 in mid-week and following the Brexit referendum there are fears of rising nationalism in EU member states ahead of key elections in 2017, with the popular vote proving to be the winning vote.

The surprise result of the US presidential election has thrown financial markets into turmoil and with sterling firming against both the euro and the dollar, this has weakened Liffe wheat futures, with barley prices dropping as well.

November, 2016, feed wheat futures dropped slightly to £137.50 and May, 2017, dropped £2.50 to £139.

UK ex-farm bread milling wheat is down £1.20 to £137.70 but feed wheat is up £1.10 to £134.60 and feed barley is up £1.60 to £115.70.

While both UK bread and feed wheat ex-farm averages have increased slightly this season, feed wheat values have been rising faster. This has led to the gap between bread wheat and feed wheat values closing.

For spot prices, the gap between the two grades reached its narrowest since May, 2012, last week of just £3.10. While UK values have generally found support this season from stronger EU prices and weaker sterling, there are differing influences on bread and feed grade wheat prices.

For harvest, 2016, the largest area since 2010 was planted down to nabim Group 1 and Group 2 varieties. This, along with generally good UK wheat quality, means a greater proportion is meeting milling requirements and this has capped the gains in bread wheat values. Conversely, there is lower availability of both feed wheat and imported maize from the near continent. This is forcing feed wheat price to rise relative to other crops, eg milling wheat, feed barley, and effectively squeezing the milling premium from beneath.

With the milling premium narrowing due to reasonable supplies and tighter feed wheat availability, crop with milling quality could be incentivised into feed markets, especially where the feed demand is close to hand.

For the UK market, weakness in the feed grain picture is likely to have more of an impact for barley than wheat. UK feed wheat supplies this season are tighter than they have been for the past two years and generally good quality of the crop suggests less reliance on finding feed demand, either in the UK and abroad.

With UK feed barley supplies relatively abundant, prices may be more exposed to global feed grain price movements than has been the case in the recent past.

Demand for feed barley remains good, particularly in the near months. It is estimated that the UK has a barley surplus of around 1.4m tonnes and good progress has been made with exports to date.

However, from a Scottish perspective, the supply and demand of feed barley is very tight and our export programme is expected to be limited.

EU soft wheat exports for year-to-date total 8.6m tonnes, compared to 7.6m tonnes last year at this time and barley exports at 1.5m tonnes are well back on the 4.7m tonnes traded last year at this time.

Another factor is that the final French maize crop for 2016 is forecast at a 26-year low of 11.8m tonnes, compared to 13.7m tonnes in 2015. However, global maize output is forecast to be a record high of 1030.5m tonnes, which is 70.6m tonnes up on the year and is due to a larger US crop driven by strong yields, as well as higher production in Russia and Ukraine.

The global wheat output of 744.7m tonnes will result in global end of season stocks reaching a new record this season of 249.2m tonnes which would be an increase of 8.2m tonnes year-on-year.

Russia has again increased its 2016 grain production forecast to 117m tonnes, compared to 105m tonnes in 2015 and its winter cereal planted area is now at 17.4m ha, compared to 15.8m ha in 2015 – and expected to go even higher, up 8% year-on-year.

Most of Russia’s wheat, though, is of poor quality due to late rain at harvest and only 2% of its wheat made the benchmark class 3 export grade, but yields have been good.

Due to the wet weather, wheat sprouted and sellers have discounted the feed price by as much as 40% in order to make sales of sprouted grain and potential milling wheat has been reduced to a level known as unclassified wheat and prices have dropped by 45% on last year.

Having seen the area of spring malting barley drop to 240,000 ha in Scotland, the lowest area in 20 years, Scottish maltsters have released contract buyback terms earlier than usual in an effort to encourage growers to plant more malting varieties.

UK delivered rapeseed prices fell last week, mainly driven by the strengthening of sterling and prices were not helped by the latest estimate for US soyabean production at a new record of 119m tonnes, 12m tonnes up on last year’s record.

As a result, oilseed rape delivered Erith was down £3.50 to £352, but farmers in Argentina are expected to plant the smallest area to soya in five years – less 500,000 ha – and replace that area with maize, as the soyabean tax was reduced but a maize tax was removed completely.

In the US, even with low interest rates, low commodity prices have forced farmland prices down by an average of 20% from their peak early last year. This is the first significant 'correction' since the mid-1980s.

As the world increased output to meet demand, commodity prices adjusted lower and maize and oilseed prices are expected to bottom out in the current 2016-17 marketing year. Declining cash receipts are now leading to a reduction in inflation-adjusted farmland values.

Land prices may, after 2018, stage a rebound of 6% by 2020 as a recovery in agricultural commodity prices feeds through into higher cash receipts, according to forecasts.

In the UK the average value of all types of farmland across the country fell by 0.8% in the last quarter, recording a total fall to date in 2016 of 2.3%.