September 6, 2007

US soybean prices likely to reach US$10/bushel by end-2007
 

US soybean prices may touch US$10/bushel by November or December, up from about US$9/bushel at present, John Baize, chief executive of international agricultural trading and policy consulting firm John C. Baize and Associates, said Thursday (Sep 6).

He said that an exceptionally dry August in the US is likely to reduce soybean output. As a result, actual soybean production may be lower than the Aug 10 projection by the US Department of Agriculture of 71.4 million tonnes, and could even be around the 67-million-tonne mark.

"I have been talking to a lot of farmers and they are saying that yields are already quite a lot lower than last year," he said at the fourth South-east Asia-US Agricultural Cooperators Conference.

He said that rains in some soybean-growing provinces in late August may improve soybean production prospects, but would not push production back to normal levels.

John Hoffman, president of the American Soybean Association, said that production of soybean in 2007 is expected to be 2.7 billion bushels (about 73.4 million tonnes), which would still be lower than 3.18 billion bushels in 2006, as 13 percent less area was sown with soybean this year in the US.

He agreed with Baize that soybean prices may eventually touch US$10/bushel but believed that this would happen gradually, possibly by September next year.