Heavy rains swamping US farmland are grabbing the attention of global grain buyers as prices of corn and soybean futures soar on concerns about damage from the deluge. But demand for US exports probably will not surge as the weather worries spread beyond the farmhouses and coffee shops of the rural Midwest. There is still plenty of cheaper grain available from other countries.
Weather in the fertile grain belt of the United States is critical to prices and the flow of food around the world. Recent storms have dumped double the normal rainfall on much of eastern Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and western Ohio, MDA Weather Services said. This has delayed planting of the last 10 percent or so of the soybean crop, and could reduce the size of the autumn corn and soybean harvests. December corn futures are up more than 9 percent so far this month, on track for one of the strongest June rallies in decades due to worries about reduced yields.
In past years, unfavourable weather has spurred export sales of US crops because buyers have worried about tightening supplies. However, after record-large US corn and soy harvests last year, global stockpiles are ample to compensate for any weather-related losses. Kent Hamm, a general manager of grain elevators in Illinois, said a buyer in Taiwan contacted him on Friday with the first international question he has received this year about the coming crop. Still, he is not expecting big sales.
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