The global soybean crop will total 286.597 million metric tons in the year beginning Sept. 1, bigger than the 282.703 million tons predicted May 3, Memphis, Tennessee-based researcher Informa Economics Inc. said in a report to clients yesterday. That compares with the USDA’s forecast of a record 285.5 million tons. The USDA is scheduled to update its outlook on world crop supplies on June 12.
"Prices are declining because traders are expecting the USDA to raise its estimate on global production in its next report," Hiroyuki Kikukawa, general manager for research at Nihon Unicom Inc., said from Tokyo. "That means increased competition among suppliers."
Soybeans for delivery in July fell 0.2 percent to $15.285 a bushel by 6:49 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade, heading for the second decline in three days. Corn for December delivery rose 0.4 percent to $5.4425 a bushel. Trading volume in corn futures was 35 percent lower than the average for the past 100 days for this time of day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
U.S. farmers had yet to plant 9 percent of corn crops in the main growing areas as of June 2, USDA data show, and farmers may shift some fields to soybeans, which can be sown later. Soybean planting was 57 percent complete, behind the five-year average pace of 74 percent. Much of Iowa and Illinois, the top two growers of both crops, had double the normal amount of rain in the past two weeks, National Weather Service data show.
Paris Wheat
Wheat for July delivery was unchanged at $7.015 a bushel in Chicago. In Paris, milling wheat for November delivery dropped 0.6 percent to 204.75 euros ($268.63) a ton on NYSE Liffe, declining for a third day.
World wheat production may climb to 702 million tons in the 2013-14 season, up from 659 million tons a year earlier when crops in Russia and eastern Europe were hit by dry weather, according to a report today from the Agricultural Market Information System set up by the G-20 countries. The agency expects global corn output to jump to 963 million tons from 873 million in the prior season, when the U.S. had drought.
