Corn price slumps after US forecasts record crop

Washington has surprised traders by raising its estimate for America's corn production to a record 13.2m bushels (334.1m tonnes), despite the lengthy delays to harvesting which have left a chunk of the crop in the field. The data sent corn limit down in Chicago.
The US Department of Agriculture lifted by 230m bushels (5.84m tonnes) its estimate for the 2009-10 crop, taking the harvest past the previous record set two years before.

The increase, which reflected an increase to 165.2 bushels per acre in the USDA's yield assessment for the crop, defied expectations from traders that Washington would cut its forecast by 100m bushels to reflect the impact of the late harvest.

"The market was looking for USDA to reduce the size of the crop due to late harvest and yield losses on crop still in the field – but USDA raised the crop on better yields," broker Benson Quinn Commodities said.

Nearly one-third of North Dakota's corn crop was yet to be harvested, data last week showed, and there were doubts as to the quality of much of what had reached farm bins, with wet weather causing some mould damage.