Spot soyabean basis bids tumbled in the interior US Midwest on Friday following a sharp increase of farmer sales this week that supplied processors and other facilities with enough soyabeans to last until harvest starts, dealers said. The soya basis plunged by 50 cents at an elevator at Council Bluffs, Iowa, while bids fell by 20 to 35 cents at soya processors in Des Moines and Sioux City, Iowa, and Lafayette, Indiana.
Some grain and soya facilities were offering free "DP," or delayed pricing, allowing farmers to deliver the grain and store it for free, and set the price later. The offers helped trigger farmer sales and replenish supply pipelines, an Iowa grain broker said.
Corn bids were mostly steady although the basis fell 5 cents at Council Bluffs, Iowa, where farmers have begun harvesting corn. Barge freight costs continue to soar due to low water on the Mississippi River that has slowed traffic, limiting barge availability throughout the Midwest.
The highest barge rates are for the Memphis-to-Cairo segment of the Mississippi, where spot barges traded Friday at 500 percent of tariff, up from 475 percent a day ago. Following a week-long crop tour, the editors of the Pro Farmer newsletter projected the US corn crop at 10.478 billion bushels with a yield of 120.25 bushels per acre (bpa), below USDA's latest forecast for a 10.779 billion bushel crop with a yield of 123.4 bpa.
Pro Farmer pegged US soyabean production at 2.60 billion bushels with a yield of 34.8 bpa. USDA has projected the crop at 2.692 billion bushels and yield at 36.1 bpa. At the Chicago Board of Trade, soyabeans rose 1 percent and posted the biggest weekly gain in a month ahead of Pro Farmer's US crop estimates, while corn fell on profit-taking and positioning as September options expired.