Agriculture • Corn prices hit record after US cuts harvest hopes

Corn prices hit record after US cuts harvest hopes
Farm officials cut their forecasts for the US corn and soybean crops even further than investors had expected to account for damage from drought, lowering their estimates for the corn yield to a 17-year low.

Corn prices soared to a record high.

The US Department of Agriculture cut its estimates for the domestic corn yield from 146.0 bushels per acre to 123.4 bushels per acre, which would be the worst result since 1995.

The estimate for acres abandoned because of the worst drought in more than 50 years, capped by the hottest July on record, was raised by 1.5m acres to 9.0m acres, to leave production at a little under 10.8bn bushels.

This figure represented a 2.2bn-bushel downgrade from the USDA’s July estimate, and was lower than the market had expected.

Soybean downgrade

For soybeans, the yield estimate was cut to 36.1 bushels per acre from 40.5 bushels per acre.

With the forecast for sowings making it to harvest also reduced, production was pegged at 2.69bn bushels, 350m bushels lower than previously expected.

The downgrade was also bigger than forecast by investors.

More soon

http://www.agrimoney.com/news/corn-pric … -4852.html

Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Aug 10, 2012 6:54 am