Soybeans fell to the lowest level since 2010 after China suspended import approval on two genetically modified traits and US farmers began harvesting of a record crop. Corn rebounded from a five-year low.
Soybeans for November delivery lost as much as 0.5 per cent to $9.055 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, the lowest for a most-active contract since July 2010. Futures were at $9.0775 by 2:29 pm in Singapore after slumping for a seventh week, the longest run of such declines since June 2010.
Prices tumbled 30 per cent this year on expectations that a record harvest in the US, the top grower, will boost global supply. Two genetically modified traits currently not grown in commercial quantities in the US, were held as “pending” in China, the biggest buyer, Jim Sutter, chief executive officer of the US Soybean Export Council, said Sept. 26. The US soybean harvest was 3 per cent complete in main growing areas as of 21 September, the US Department of Agriculture said last week.
Soybeans declined on “news that China was set to suspend imports of genetically modified product and an ever improving yield forecast for the US crop,” Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. said in a report e-mailed today. The traits haven’t been rejected and the delay was based on “more emotional” reasons, according to Sutter.
US soybean production will reach a record 3.913 billion bushels, according to the USDA. Yields will total 46.6 bushels an acre, up from an August estimate of 45.4 bushels per acre, it forecast on 11 September.
Bloomberg News, edited by ESM
