London robusta coffee futures fell on investor selling at midsession on Wednesday, while cocoa inched higher on light arbitrage and position rolling, and white sugar was little changed in light volumes. London robusta coffee futures fell on light investor selling, pressured by a firm dollar as the market eyed a looming options expiry, dealers said.
July was down $17 to $2,250 a tonne in reasonable volume of 4,128 lots at 1111 GMT. Dealers said the market was starting to focus on an options expiry on April 16. Coffee exports from Guatemala rose 11.4 percent in March to 484,814 60-kg bags, growers group Anacafe said on Tuesday.
Burundian rebels refused to rejoin a truce monitoring team which was to have begun work on Tuesday, demanding amnesty in exchange for participation in the group overseeing the end of the country's long civil war. Kenyan coffee prices were mixed at this week's auction with most grades easing, taking direction from prices in New York, traders said on Tuesday.
London cocoa futures inched higher on light arbitrage and position rolling against a backdrop of robust demand and tight supplies, dealers said. July was up 3 pounds to 1,324 pounds a tonne in low volume of 1,707 lots at 1118 GMT.
Dealers kept an eye on political instability in top cocoa producer Ivory Coast, which lent some support to the market.
The bulk of trading volume was taken up by position rolling, dealers said. Ivory Coast slashed taxes on key food imports on Tuesday, bowing to protests over rising prices by housewives and youths in which residents said one young man was killed. The main crop harvest on Sulawesi island, Indonesia's key source for cocoa beans, has started but trade is slow as buyers wait for better quality beans and prices to fall.
London white sugar futures edged higher on light speculative buying in thin volumes as the market digested reports from the Asia International Sugar Conference in Mumbai. July was up $1.80 to $333.90 per tonne in low volume of 525 lots at 1145 GMT.
The Philippines plans to import about 170 million litres of ethanol from Brazil and Thailand in 2009, Archie Amarra, executive director of Philippines Sugar Millers Association Inc, said on Wednesday. Sugar exports from India, the world's second-biggest producer after Brazil, are likely to exceed 4 million tonnes in the current crop year to September, one of the world's leading traders said on Wednesday.
Germany's state food safety agency said on Wednesday it approved open-air field trials of sugar beet and potatoes containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Sugar producer Tate & Lyle Plc said trading had continued in line with its expectations and second-half pre-tax profit would be around 117 million pounds ($231 million).