Reuters – Chicago corn was largely unchanged on Wednesday and near a decade high, scaled in the previous session, as traders fretted over planting delays in the United States and a lack of supplies from wartorn Ukraine.
Soybeans and wheat, meanwhile, inched higher.
The most active corn contract, Cv1, was unmoved at $7.9975 a bushel, but not far from its highest since September 2012, reached April 19.
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Soybeans (Sv1) gained 0.2 per cent at $16.95 a bushel and wheat (Wv1) rose 0.3 per cent to $11.1175 a bushel.
Chilly weather is delaying the start of U.S. corn plantings. The market is particularly sensitive to potential problems for the U.S. crop as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has stalled Ukrainian grain exports.
U.S. corn planting was four per cent complete as of April 17, below the five-year average of six per cent, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a weekly report April 18.
Dry weather forecast for the second half of April in Brazil’s central area might limit yields for the 2021-22 second corn crop, experts said.
After seeing its first crop affected by lack of rainfall, Brazil now hopes to harvest an 88.5-million-tonne second crop, which accounts for nearly 75 per cent of its total corn output in a given year.
For wheat, the USDA crop report also underscored drought risks that could exacerbate a shortfall in supply from Ukraine. The agency rated 30 per cent of U.S. winter wheat in good to excellent condition, a 26-year low.
Gains in soybean prices were capped by an official forecast of higher production in China, by far the world’s top importer. China’s soybean output is set to increase by 25.8 per cent in 2022, an Agriculture Ministry official said.
Ukraine has insufficient storage capacity even for its reduced 2022 grain harvest, the United Nations’ World Food Program said April 19.
