U.S. stockpiles will reach 861 million bushels in the season that ends May 31, compared with 875 million forecast in September, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday in a report. That compares with 753 million this year and analysts’ forecast for 828 million.
Farmers may begin to trim production after an expanding global grain glut has kept a lid on prices after they reached a four-year high in 2012, and also will cut the cost of food imports to a five-year low this year, the United Nations said Thursday. As planting of winter wheat wraps up across the Northern Hemisphere, dry weather is threatening production in parts of Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. Great Plains.
World inventories will total 228.5 million metric tons in the season that began June 1, up from 226.56 million forecast last month, the agency said. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey forecast, on average, 224.76 million tons.
Wheat futures slid as much as 1.5 per cent to $5.04 bu in Chicago after release of USDA monthly crop report. Before the report wheat traded at $5.11.
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