Soyabean futures at the Chicago Board of Trade fell early on Tuesday as a slowed US corn seeding pace could lead to more soyabean plantings this spring, traders said. Corn is planted from mid-April to mid-May in the Midwest. If farmers can't get all their intended corn acres in by then, they can switch to soyabeans, which have a shorter growing cycle.
That would only add to abundant soyabean supplies. The advancing soyabean harvest in South America was producing a fresh batch of cheap beans, with exporters sourcing supplies from Argentina and Brazil.
May soyabeans were down 7-1/2 cents at $7.13-3/4 per bushel by 10:20 am CDT. The back months were down 4-1/2 to 8-1/2. Man Financial and Fortis each sold 200-300 July, traders said. The products followed May soyameal fell $2.20 per ton to $193.10, with the deferreds 60 cents to $2.80 lower.
May soyabean oil was down 0.17 cent at 31.96 cents per lb, with the back months 0.15 to 0.19 weaker. Also bearish were Canadian farmers' plans to seed nearly 12 percent more acres of canola, reaching 14.8 million acres this spring, Statistics Canada reported on Tuesday.