Chicago | Reuters — Chicago soybean futures dropped to a more than three-week low on Monday, pressured by falling crude oil markets and delayed U.S. corn planting that some analysts think could push farmers to plant more soybeans.
Corn fell ahead of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s weekly planting progress report on Monday afternoon, showing increased seedings, while wheat traded just under even, after rains in growing parts of the U.S. Plains provided some relief to the winter crop.
The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) fell 39-1/2 cents, to $16.45-1/4 a bushel, after hitting its lowest since April 8 (all figures US$).
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Corn lost 10 cents, to $8.03-1/2 a bushel, and wheat eased 1/4 cent at $10.55-1/2 a bushel.
Soybeans felt pressure from a 3.4 per cent drop in Brent crude oil futures.
Both oil and soybeans are pressured by protracted lockdowns across China’s major cities, causing logistics logjams across the nation’s food industry, weakening U.S. exports of grains and meat to its top agricultural export customer.
“It’s not just impacting the grains,” said Karl Setzer, commodity risk analyst at Agrivisor. “You name it, it looks like China’s going to be scaling back on their imports across the board.”
USDA reported corn plantings at 14 per cent complete, two percentage points below analyst expectations, while eight per cent of soybeans have been seeded, in line with trade projections.
“We’re getting the crop in the ground, finally,” said Brian Hoops, senior market analyst at Midwest Market Solutions. “We’re not late yet. May 10 is kind of the key date.”
Wheat was pressured by beneficial rainfall across parts of the U.S. Plains, with 27 per cent of winter wheat rated good-to-excellent as of May, just short of analyst expectations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday Ukraine could lose tens of millions of tonnes of grain due to Russia’s control of Black Sea shipping, triggering a food crisis that will affect Europe, Asia and Africa.
— Reporting for Reuters by Christopher Walljasper in Chicago; additional reporting by Naveen Thukral in Singapore and Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris.
