News

According to estimations of APK-Inform experts, in 2009/10 MY, the export potential of grains and leguminous plants from Ukraine totals 16.8 mln tonnes, down 33% compared to the export volumes in 2008/09 MY. Despite the decrease of export volumes, the mentioned volume is rather large-scale, and exceeds the average annual indices of the previous seasons (except of 2008/09 MY).

“We ran into some farmer selling above $4 today,” said Greg Grow, the director of agribusiness for Archer Financial Services in Chicago. “Farmers are making progress harvesting this week.”

Corn futures for December delivery fell 0.5 cent, or 0.1 percent, to $3.94 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. Earlier, the price reached $4.03, the highest level for a most- active contract since Oct. 23.

The U.S. is still on track to produce its second-largest corn crop in history, even as the government lowered the projected size of the crop. The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday cut its estimate of the U.S. corn crop to 12.9 billion bushels, down 1% from its October estimate, based on a slightly smaller national corn yield estimate. Only in 2007 did the U.S. grow more corn. Tuesday’s estimate for the current corn crop is also 7% above 2008’s crop size.

The Agrarian Fund of Ukraine stocks 2.4 mln tonnes of grains, including the volumes given to agrarians as collateral for receiving of budget lend, declared Yuri Lusan, the First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine, on November 6. Such grain volumes will completely cover realization of interventions during the whole marketing year.