World Agrinews

With the El Nino weather system building, heavy rainfall has already coated the south of Brazil and Uruguay and is moving south to soak most of Argentina’s farm belt.

India’s winter-sown wheat acreage up to Nov. 12 rose about 5% on year to 5.67 million hectares, according to government data Friday, which could help cushion a shortfall in summer-sown foodgrains production.

“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.