SINGAPORE: Chicago wheat futures slid nearly 2% on Tuesday, with prices dropping to their lowest since early April, as harvest pressure in parts of Europe and North America weighed on the market.
Corn and soybeans fell for a second session. The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) fell 1.9% to $10.14-1/2 a bushel, as of 0437 GMT.
The market dropped to its lowest since April 4 at $10.13 a bushel earlier in the session.
Corn lost 1.4% to $7.73-3/4 a bushel and soybeans gave up 1.1% to $16.83-1/2 a bushel. Wheat harvesting in parts of Europe and North America is easing some of the supply concerns triggered by a lack of Black Sea shipments, squeezed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Algeria tenders to buy soft milling wheat
Negotiations to export Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea has made little progress, providing a floor under wheat and corn markets.
Russia is committing a war crime by blocking the export of millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said on Monday, as EU foreign ministers met to discuss ways to free up the crop amid a global food crisis.
China’s corn imports from Ukraine in May plunged compared with a year ago, customs data showed on Monday, after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine cut shipments.
China, the world’s top importer of corn, brought in 126,727 tonnes of the yellow grain from Ukraine, down sharply from 1.26 million tonnes a year ago, according to data from the General Administration of Customs. China imported 695,585 tonnes of corn from Ukraine in April.
The European Union’s crop monitoring service MARS on Monday lowered its 2022 yield forecasts for most cereal and oilseed crops as dry conditions persisted in much of Europe.
For soft wheat, the EU’s main cereal crop, MARS cut its projection of this year’s yield to 5.76 tonnes per hectare (t/ha) from 5.89 t/ha forecast last month.
For US corn and soybeans, the market is closely watching the US weather.
After being planted initially in wet and cold conditions, forecasts are projecting hotter-than-normal temperatures for the rest of the month, raising concerns about key growth stages.
Large speculators raised their net long position in CBOT corn futures in the week to June 14, regulatory data released on Friday showed.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly commitments of traders report also showed that non-commercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, increased their net short position in CBOT wheat and cut their net long position in soybeans.