Soybeans were higher on technical and fund buying, along with spillover from the outside markets. Even with good harvest weather seen most of this week, there are concerns over yield and harvest activity is quite a bit behind average in many areas. The USDA reports 51% of beans have been harvested, compared to 44% last week and 87% for the five year average with 63% of the crop in good to excellent condition, down 2% from a week ago. The harvest pace was below the pre-report range of estimates. Still, the weather should help farmers catch up on this year’s delayed harvested with generally dry conditions expected into the weekend. Meal and oil followed beans higher. Indonesia’s central statistics bureau, via Dow Jones Newswires, estimates 2009 soybean production at 966,469 tons, up 4.5% from the last projection, with planted area up 23% from 2008.
Corn was higher on fund and technical buying, in addition to the outside market direction. Generally, fields remain wet and what has been harvested has fairly high moisture content. According to the USDA, 94% of corn is mature, compared to 99% on average and 25% is harvested, compared to 71% on average with 67% of corn in good to excellent shape, down 2% from last week. From week to week, U.S. harvest only advanced 5% because of rain, wet fields and cold weather. Ethanol futures were mostly higher.
The wheat complex was higher on fund and technical buying along with spillover from the lower dollar. As with beans and corn, the outside markets on Monday outweighed good winter wheat planting weather. The Ag Department states that 79% of winter wheat has been planted, compared to 90% on average and 64% has emerged, compared to 75% on average with 64% in good to excellent condition, up 2% on the week. European wheat was higher on spillover from U.S. trade, but aside from there, there wasn’t any new news; January Paris was up .6% and January London was 1.2% higher. At a food security conference in London, the director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute told Dow Jones Newswires that wheat prices could double in the next 30 years due to projected disease woes and stable yields.
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