Corn Supplies Expected to Hit 37 Year Lows

that means fun with gasoline prices……

“Wet weather that delayed corn planting in the U.S., the world’s largest exporter, may send global inventories to their lowest in 37 years, signaling higher costs for consumers and livestock producers.

More than one-third of Midwest fields were planted after the mid-May target for optimal growth because of excessive rain, and Ohio farmers as of June 5 were the furthest behind since 1989, with 58 percent sown, government data show. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said June 6 that the disruptions increase the “potential for a shortfall.”

Corn futures more than doubled in the past year to $7.365 a bushel inChicago and may top $9 if conditions worsen, according to Morgan Stanley. The rally is boosting costs for meat producers including Tyson Foods Inc. and ethanol makers such as Poet LLC, as global food inflation tracked by the United Nations accelerated in nine of the past 11 months.

“There’s potential to take out record highs this summer for corn,” saidRichard Feltes, a vice president of research at R.J. O’Brien & Associates, a broker in Chicago. “There’s a lot riding on the need for our weather to normalize and not be characterized by this regime of extremes that’s really been the pattern since last fall.”

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