Chicago Board of Trade corn and soyabean futures fell on Thursday, pressured by the expanding harvest in the US Midwest as well as a forecast for a bumper crop in Brazil, traders said. Wheat futures eased on a profit-taking setback after rallying sharply on Wednesday. The harvest pressure and outlook for the South American crop that will add to an already ample supply base overwhelmed support from the US Agriculture Department's reports of strong export demand for both corn and soyabeans.
At 10:31 am CDT (1531 GMT), CBOT November soyabean futures were down 8-1/4 cents at $9.48-1/2 a bushel. CBOT December corn futures fell 5-1/4 cents at $3.42-1/2 a bushel. Brazil's CONAB on Thursday morning forecast that 2016/17 soyabean production in the country, a key exporter, will rise to between 101.9 million and 104 million tonnes from 95.4 million tonnes in the previous marketing year.
CONAB pegged the corn harvest between 82.3 million and 83.8 million tonnes, up from 66.7 million tonnes in the 2015/16 marketing year. The Brazil forecasts followed an outlook from the Buenos Aires grains exchange on Wednesday that Argentine farmers will likely harvest a record corn crop as they favour planting of 36 million tonnes in 2016/17, 6 million tonnes more than 2015/16.
The USDA reported weekly soyabean export sales rose to 2.180 million tonnes from 1.693 million tonnes a week ago and well above forecasts for 1.2 million to 1.5 million tonnes. Weekly corn export sales of 2.602 million tonnes (old-crop and new-crop combined) topped forecasts ranging from 1.6 million to 2.1 million tonnes. CBOT soft red winter wheat futures for December delivery were down 7-1/4 cents at $3.97-3/4 a bushel. MGEX spring wheat for December delivery was 1/2 cent lower at $5.24 a bushel, on track for its first down day since September 26.
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