China set to buy more U.S. corn this year

(Reuters) Strong domestic prices and low reserves are likely to force China to import more U.S. corn this year, squeezing tight world supplies, analysts and industry officials said March 14. China’s corn imports are expected to more than double in the current 2011-12 crop year to four million tonnes from 1.5 million a year earlier,




Corn 2012 Output Under Threat From Rising Inputs

Convent ional wisdom holds U.S. farmers will boost corn production next year because of historically high prices, robust end-user demand, and low global inventories. But corn prices, off their highs by more than $1 a bushel, are now only 12 to 13 per cent above year-ago levels, and input costs are on average 25 per


Chasing High Corn Prices, U.S. Farmers Skip Rotations

Farmer Brian Schaumburg has planted corn for five straight years in some of the thousands of acres he tends in central Illinois. Farmers who eschew crop rotations that help to replenish the soil with nutrients take a risk that yields will decline. But corn prices soared to a record earlier this year, making so-called corn-on-corn

Brazil Brings Farming Muscle To Corn And Cotton

After transforming global agriculture by quintupling their soybean production since 1980, Brazilian farmers are now on the brink of crop breakthroughs in cotton and corn, long dominated by growers in America. Helped by high futures prices and a sustained local agricultural boom, cotton and corn acreage is spreading fast, despite being twice as capital intensive



Mexico Allows GM Corn Trials To Proceed

Mexico has approved the first pilot program to plant genetically modified corn, a sensitive topic in the country that touts itself as the birthplace of corn and where small farmers worry the high-tech grain may contaminate native varieties. The Agriculture Ministry granted a permit March 8 to global biotech seed maker Monsanto to plant no


Sky-High Crop Acreage Targets Likely A Pipe Dream

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reiterated its projections for record-high combined plantings of corn, cotton and soybeans this spring at its annual Outlook Forum, dealing a fresh blow to crop prices by standing by its projections for potentially record-high crop production in 2011. But while record U.S. crop-planting estimates are all well and good on

Little Damage From Chill In U. S. Plains

Frosty temperatures in the U. S. corn belt and the southern Plains wheat belt may have been cold enough to cause scattered minor crop damage over the weekend but nothing significant, a private forecaster said May 10. “It did not come in as cold as we were thinking in those western areas,” said Mike Palmerino,