Hard red winter wheat futures on the Kansas City Board of Trade ended higher Tuesday, buoyed by crop concerns in Australia. The KCBT July wheat contract closed up 7-1/4 cents at $8.05 per bushel, with September 5-3/4 cents higher at $8.17-3/4. The gains came despite weakness in corn futures and nearby soyabean futures.
Strength primarily was attributed to news that Australia's eastern wheat regions, which normally account for 30 percent of the country's crop, were unlikely to receive sufficient rainfall in the next week to trigger full-scale planting. Also, Rabobank cut its forecast for Australia's 2008/09 wheat crop to 20 million to 24 million tonnes from a previous forecast of 23 million to 26 million tonnes in April because of dry weather.
Weekend storms that delayed harvesting in parts of the US Plains were also mildly supportive, though overall harvest pressure was still seen as a limiting pricing factor.
In other news of note: USDA reported Tuesday that 15.217 million bushels of US wheat were inspected for export in the latest week. Trade estimates were for 15 million to 20 million bushels.
Japan's Ministry of Agriculture issued a tender to buy 63,000 tonnes of feed wheat. Bangladesh will import 800,000 tonnes of wheat in the coming fiscal year to shore up buffer stocks. Kazakhstan, which last month suspended wheat exports until September, said on Tuesday it could suspend exports of wheat flour, if its domestic market came under pressure from rising global prices.
European Union wheat is currently too expensive to be competitive in global export markets, German trading house Toepfer International said. United Arab Emirates will buy 500,000 tonnes of wheat and donate it to Yemen. The US CCC on Friday said it sold 500,000 tonnes of US wheat from the Emerson Trust, including 300,000 tonnes of HRW wheat, to provide food aid to North Korea.