US corn futures fall to three-week low as planting speeds up

Corn fell to the lowest price in almost three weeks on speculation that rapid planting and favourable growing conditions will aid early development and boost yields in the US.

About 50% of the crop was seeded as of April 25, compared with 19% a week earlier and 20% last year, the USDA said. The pace is the fastest since the department began collecting national data in 1975, said Julie Schmidt, a USDA statistician.

Corn futures for July delivery fell 5.75 cents, or 1.6%, to US$3.5375 a bushel on the CBOT, the third straight decline. Earlier, the price dropped to US$3.515, the lowest since April 7.

Corn has fallen 15% this year in part because the USDA forecasts a 13% increase in combined production from Brazil and Argentina, the two biggest exporters after the US.

US farmers may increase planting by 2.7% this year to 88.798 million acres (35.9 million hectares), enticed by the prospect of improved returns and the availability of acreage normally sown with winter wheat, the USDA said March 31. That would be the second-largest seeded area for corn seeded since 1946, behind only the 2007 crop, government data show.

The record pace by farmers may lead to an increase of more than one million acres from the USDA’s March planting estimate.

Since 1990, there have been only five years when corn planting was more than 58% complete by the second week in May. During those years, the average increase in corn plantings from the March estimate to the June estimate by USDA was 1.07 million acres, data from the USDA show.

Corn is the biggest US crop, valued at US$48.6 billion in 2009, followed by soy at US$31.8 billion, government figures show.