US grain prices fell on Thursday, with corn futures leading the slide, as commodity traders reacted to government forecasts of increased corn plantings and falling prices in the coming growing season. The US Department of Agriculture's revised acreage forecasts, released Thursday morning at its annual two-day Outlook Forum, predicted that US farmers will cut plantings of the eight major crops by 1 percent to 249.1 million acres in 2016, with expectations for weak prices cutting into seedings.
While total acreage is expected to be down, farmers are expected to boost corn seedings by 2 million acres to 90 million, according to the USDA projections. But a downward forecast for soyabean plantings this year made some investors suspicious: USDA projected soyabean plantings would be at 82.5 million acres, down slightly from 82.7 million.
Traders said they were expecting the agency to predict farmers would plant more corn and soyabeans this year than last year as they scramble to stay solvent in the face of declining crop prices. Chicago Board of Trade front-month corn fell more than 1 percent, to $3.56 a bushel at 10:28 am CST (1628 GMT). Front-month soyabeans fell 0.5 percent to $8.63-1/4 a bushel.
Front-month wheat fell off earlier gains to be down 0.2 percent to $4.43-1/2 a bushel. The contract had touched its lowest since June 2010 at $4.38 a bushel on Wednesday, pressured by abundant global supplies and weak demand for US wheat. Export sales of corn and soyabeans last week were within the range of trade expectations while wheat sales topped expectations, according to USDA data on Thursday. But season-to-date sales of all three commodities continued to lag the pace needed to reach USDA's full-season export outlook.
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