Monday, June 09, 2008

Corn surges to new record on rainy weather, dollar

More trouble on the food supply front....


from Forbes Magazine 

Corn futures shot up to a record for a second day Friday, driven higher by heavy rain in Midwestern states, a slumping dollar and skyrocketing crude oil prices.

Other commodities traded broadly higher, with crude oil soaring almost $10 and gold, silver, copper and other agriculture futures also rising sharply.

Heavy rains have flooded corn crops in Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska and other states, giving farmers their wettest spring since 1993 and severely delaying planting. Forecasts show the bad weather moving toward the western corn belt states of Minnesota and Wisconsin over the next several days.

"It's all about the weather. People have had to replant fields a third time and it's completely unknown how the flooding is going to affect yields," said Elaine Kub, analyst with DTN in Omaha.

Corn for July delivery surged to an all-time high of $6.6325 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade before easing back to $6.52, still up $8.75 cents. Corn prices have jumped 35 percent since the start of the year.  (more)

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