Corn-Crop Delays in U.S. Signal Tightest World Supply Since 1974

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

By Jeff Wilson and Whitney McFerron

June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Wet weather that delayed corn planting in the U.S., the world’s largest exporter, may send global inventories to their lowest in 37 years, signaling higher costs for consumers and livestock producers.

More than one-third of Midwest fields were planted after the mid-May target for optimal growth because of excessive rain, and Ohio farmers as of June 5 were the furthest behind since 1989, with 58 percent sown, government data show. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said June 6 that the disruptions increase the “potential for a shortfall.”

Corn futures more than doubled in the past year to $7.365 a bushel in Chicago and may top $9 if conditions worsen, according to Morgan Stanley. The rally is boosting costs for meat producers including Tyson Foods Inc. and ethanol makers such as Poet LLC, as global food inflation tracked by the United Nations accelerated in nine of the past 11 months.

“There’s potential to take out record highs this summer for corn,” said Richard Feltes, a vice president of research at R.J. O’Brien & Associates, a broker in Chicago. “There’s a lot riding on the need for our weather to normalize and not be characterized by this regime of extremes that’s really been the pattern since last fall.”

Read more: http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aCBuyadERu8U&pos=12

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I'm shock at how many 100's of acres that have not been planted around mid-michigan. The fields are just laying unworked.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. GM Corn theoretically was supposed to have been able to increase yield.

[NickB79]

7. You can't increase yield if you can't get your seeds in the ground on time.

GM or no, the fields are too wet for the tractors to get into them without getting stuck.

[SpiralHawk]

11. But the reality of GMO crops has NEVER matched the propaganda

No yield increases. No reduction in water use.

All GMOs typically do is disenfranchise farmers and give corporations control of seeds, while occultly shoving largely untested crapola down the gullets of human beings.

[Odin2005]

17. This has nothing to do with GMO crops, nice try with the scaremongering.

(now, the pesticides DUMPED ON the GMO crops, THAT'S a different story...)

This has to do with shitty weather.

[murielm99]

2. Ours are planted.

But our nearest neighbor had to replant a great deal of his corn yesterday. There were lakes in his fields after the torrential rains here.

Prices are indeed very high. My husband was thinking that if he sells some of his corn, he may not need to borrow to bring the crop in this fall. We usually borrow for operating expenses.

[Vinee]

3. Looks like they're finally getting seed in the ground in NW Ohio.

I imagine they're using a faster growing strain of corn or plating soy beans. I imagine even with outrageous agricultural products prices, the farmers will still get their subsidies too.

[LiberalLoner]

4. So there will be both corn shortages and wheat shortages. :( Not good at all. n/t

[whosinpower]

14. Not just corn and wheat...

Rice too.

[christx30]

19. Which will probably

increase the cost of gas, since Ethenol uses corn.
We really need to stop putting our food into the gas tanks.

[villager]

5. Wonder why this would be unrecc'd? Local Panglossians insisting this is the best of all possible...

...worlds?

Or someone who doesn't want the question of "why are squandering increasingly reduced grain supplies on industrialized 'meat products'" raised?

:shrug:

[Abq_Sarah]

13. Perhaps if we stopped

taking valuable farmland and growing products destined for our gas tanks.....

[xchrom]

6. Recommend

[NickB79]

8. Wow, global crop delays and destruction from record rains, droughts, and heatwaves

It's almost like scientists somewhere predicted this would happen. In fact, I think it was even given a name. Global something or other, it had to do with things heating up?

Ah well, good thing it was proven to be nothing more than a hoax. Now pass me some of that $6/loaf bread and $10/lb beef.

[msongs]

9. "corn futures" = speculators driving up the price artificially to make $$ nt

[oldbanjo]

10. Well I guess that will also

effect Gas prices. It should be illegal to use a food crop for fuel, I wonder will they make fuel or feed the world, which will take priority.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. We can live without corn.

[roody]

15. It is a good time to be a vegetarian.

[truthisfreedom]

16. Good time to stop making corn-based ethanol.

Seriously.

[KittyWampus]

20. & fattening cows with it.

[Odin2005]

18. It will be a total loss for farmers down in Texas as well, I fear

[Evasporque]

21. All the corn is going to ethanol....duh...nt