(Businessweek) – Corn fell for a third day in Chicago on speculation global supplies following the next Northern Hemisphere harvest will be ample even after excess rain cut sowing in the U.S., the world’s biggest grower and exporter.
U.S. farmers had yet to plant 9 percent of corn crops in the main growing areas as of June 2, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. Last year, planting was complete by that time. The area sown to corn may be 93.5 million acres, 3.9 percent less than the USDA’s forecast in March, Morgan Stanley said June 3. That still would leave production at a record 13.3 billion bushels, 23 percent larger than last year’s drought-reduced crop, the bank said.
“Maybe there will be less corn than expected, but it’s still going to be a record crop,” Dave Norris, an independent grain broker in Harrogate, England, said by telephone today.“With potential increases in production in Ukraine and Russia and other Black Sea countries, it’s difficult to paint it too bullish, even if the U.S. does lose 3 or 4 million acres of corn this year.”
Corn for delivery in December dropped 0.7 percent to $5.49 a bushel at 5:15 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade, after declining 2.5 percent in the previous two days.
Russia’s total grain harvest may climb to 95 million metric tons this season from 70.9 million tons a year earlier, Interfax reported, citing Deputy Agriculture Minister Ilya Shestakov. The USDA expects corn grown in a 12-country bloc of former Soviet Union nations to gain 23 percent from a year earlier and wheat output to rebound 39 percent as crops recover from dry weather.
Soybeans for delivery in July rose 0.1 percent to $15.3025 a bushel and wheat for the same delivery month added 0.1 percent to $7.0975 a bushel. In Paris, milling wheat for delivery in November fell 0.2 percent to 207 euros ($270) a ton on NYSE Liffe.
