Corn Drops to Three-Year Low on Beneficial U.S. Weather
By Jeff Wilson - Oct 28, 2013
Corn futures fell to the lowest in more than three years as dry weather improved harvest prospects for a U.S. crop that the government estimates will be the world’s biggest ever.
Farmers probably have completed 50 percent of the harvest as of yesterday, up from 39 percent a week earlier, according Prime Agricultural Consultants Inc. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will issue its update on crop conditions later today. The agency has forecast that output will increase 28 percent this season from last year, when drought damaged fields across the Midwest.
Prices in Chicago have plunged 49 percent from last year’s record. Global supplies have surged on gains in Brazil, Argentina and Urkraine, while the U.S. crop rebounded from the 2012 drought, the most-severe since the 1930s. Cheaper corn is boosting profit for Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., which makes ethanol from the grain, and Sanderson Farms Inc., the third-largest U.S. poultry producer.
“Farmers are generally very happy with the yields this year and some are selling a few more bushels,” Chad Henderson, the president of Prime Agricultural Consultants in Brookfield, Wisconsin, said in a telephone interview.
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