Crop Prices Jump On Hot Weather In South America

Topics: From the Wires,

Crop prices rose sharply Tuesday on worries that unusually dry weather in South America could cut global supplies.

Temperatures rose last week in South America and rains that fell over the weekend were lighter than had been expected. The dryness could leave corn plants there stunted because they are pollinating this time of year.

Traders are worried that lower exports from Brazil and Argentina could reduce world food supplies. Strong demand from livestock producers and ethanol makers has already drawn down global reserves of corn and soybeans.

Crop prices had been falling this winter on expectations that exports from the United Sates could help supply the global market. A hot summer didn’t damage the U.S. corn crop as severely as some traders had expected. But gains from the U.S. Farm Belt could be offset by losses in South America if dry weather there leads to lower crop yields.

January soybeans rose 37 cents Tuesday to $12.095 per bushel. March wheat rose 22.75 cents to finish at $6.4475 per bushel. March corn rose 13.75 cents to $6.3325 per bushel.

In other trading, Precious metals fell. Gold closed below $1,600 an ounce for the first time in a week.

Gold for February delivery fell $10.50 to end at $1,595.50 an ounce. March silver lost 34.4 cents to end at $29.74 an ounce.

Copper for March delivery fell 6.05 cents to $3.409 per pound. March palladium gained 35 cents to $666.60 an ounce. January platinum gained $4.40 to $1,433.90 an ounce.

Benchmark crude oil rose $1.66 to finish at $101.34 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Heating oil gained 1.64 cents to end at $2.9159 per gallon, gasoline futures rose 0.29 cents to $2.681 per gallon and natural gas lost 0.2 cents to $3.112 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Comments are not enabled for this story.