Speaking at the company's full-year results briefing in Adelaide on Tuesday, Mr Iwaniw said buyers remained cautious.

A number of growers had chosen to hold onto their grain this season, either on-farm or through the warehouse system - rather than sell their grain straight away - in the hope prices would rise.

"Saudi buyers were falling over themselves this time last year to buy grain," Mr Iwaniw said. "Now they're only coming into the market when they really need it.

"The main reduction in price has been in barley. This time last year the landed Saudi price was US$460/t and this year it;s US$150/t." But, during the same period, freight had gone from $120/t, to $25/t, which is helping prices along.

"The concern is, there is still a big crop, with a lot of grain in the northern hemisphere," he said.

"Barley is usually a good indicator of where prices are going to go.

"Once the WA crop (which is forecast to be large) comes onto the market we could see a further price reduction."

Mr Iwaniw said this time last year the eyes of the world were on the Australian crop, driving up prices.

"It's now very hard to argue that we'll see increased grain prices," he said.

"Wheat prices, like barley, have fallen considerably and the price is now levelling off. I'd prices will either stay the same or come back a bit."

But because quality had been the major issue this season, Mr iwaniw said the high quality could attract some premiums. The extremely dry spring had meant much of the wheat brought into the system so far is 'skinny' or low weight wheat.

So far, only a third of the barley brought in to the system in SA has been Feed - the lowest on record.

* Extract from a full report in Stock Journal, November 27 issue.