Commodity Broker

Since inception, we have been working as a Commodity Broker for Corn, Soybeans, etc., in the industry. For this, we keep ourselves updated with market changes and requirements. Prices for soybeans, wheat and corn fell harshly on Friday after the U.S. Agriculture Department anticipated bigger-than-expected harvests and stockpiles this time, extending months of souk bearishness for three of the chief U.S. crops by value. Soybean futures dropped about 3%, wheat cut down by more than 4%, and corn prices slid to the lowest level in nearly four years as the USDA, in its closely watched monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, said favorable weather is expected to lead to big jumps in crop production this year, outpacing demand.

"We've got more [corn and soy] than we're going to need," said Paul Beere, a market adviser for Prime Agricultural Consultants in Brook field, Wis. He expects prices to stay soft. "There's not going to be any real need for end users to aggressively bid, because there's plenty of supply out there.” The USDA said soybean output will rise to a record 3.8 billion bushels on yields of 45.2 bushels an acre. That beat analysts' projections of 3.785 billion bushels, according to a Wall Street Journal survey this week, and topped the government's own estimate just a month ago by 4.5%. Last year's soybean crop was just under 3.3 billion bushels.
U.S. inventories of the oil seeds will total 140 million bushels at the end of August, and rise to 415 million bushels a year later after this year's record harvest, the USDA said, soundly beating analysts' forecasts. Soybean futures for July delivery fell 34 cents, or 2.6%, to $12.95¾ a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, the lowest settlement for a front-month contract since Feb. 3. More actively traded November futures dropped 1.7%. Corn and other crop prices already had fallen sharply in the past two years, weakening years of economic prosperity in farm country. Wet weather this growing season has improved soil moisture in the Midwest and Plains. At least four times the normal amount of rain has fallen in the past 30 days in parts of Iowa and Illinois, the biggest growers of corn and soybeans, according to the National Weather Service.

Three-fourths of the U.S. corn crop was rated good or excellent Sunday, as was a similar share of soybeans, the USDA said this week. "Generally favorable" weather conditions are expected to continue through at least the end of July, according to private forecaster Commodity Weather Group. The USDA did trim its estimate for corn production, saying growers will harvest 13.86 billion bushels of the grain this year, below its previous forecast of 13.935 billion bushels, which analysts expected to be unchanged, as farmers planted less corn that previously expected. But the government also predicted that U.S. corn inventories will surpass previous expectations, in part because of weaker sales to feed makers and foreign buyers. It said corn stockpiles would reach 1.246 billion bushels on Aug. 31 and rise to 1.801 billion bushels at the end of next year's growing season, versus expectations for 1.773 billion.
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• That pushed July corn futures down ¾ cent, or 0.2%, to $3.99¾ a bushel in Chicago, the lowest settlement since Aug. 11, 2010. December futures, the most-active contract by volume, fell by 2%.
• The USDA also said U.S. wheat production will top forecasts, leading it to project world wheat inventories of 189.54 million metric tons by the end of the 2014-15 season, up from a forecast of 188.61 million tons made last month. It expects strong spring wheat crops to more than offset a poor harvest of U.S. winter wheat, which suffered from bad weather.
• Wheat futures for July delivery fell 22 cents, or 4.1%, to $5.14¾ a bushel in Chicago, the lowest closing price in more than four years. The most-active contract, September futures, dropped 4.1%.
• "It was shockingly bearish in terms of expectations," said Ben Wiginton, an independent trader in Chicago. He said wheat still appears expensive relatively to corn, "so it has some leeway toward the downside."
• Cotton prices also fell on Friday, ending at the lowest level in two years, because the USDA increased its estimate for U.S. production by 10% to 16.5 million bales in the year beginning Aug. 1. Analysts had expected a 4.7% increase from last month's estimate of 15 million bales. Each bale weighs 480 pounds.
• Cotton for delivery in December fell 0.6% to 68.12 cents a pound, the lowest closing price for the most actively traded contract since June 27, 2012, on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange.
• Jonathan House, Jacob Bunge and Alexandra Wexler contributed to this article.
• Agriculture continues to be the bedrock of the Fijian economy, accounting in 1999 for some 16 percent of its GDP and two-thirds of its 310,000-strong workforce. Sugar, the most important agricultural product, produced almost 30 percent of Fiji's agricultural GDP in 1998, and 15 percent (through sugar processing) of its manufacturing GDP. The
• 364,000 tons of sugar that Fiji produced that year has earned the country some of US$122.9 million. The marketable future of this industry depends on the resolution of the property system that has been in place since 1909, when the British majestic government froze land-ownership titles in an attempt to protect indigenous (Fijian) property owners. As a result, only 8 percent of a total of 607,982 acres (1,519,956 hectares) is freehold (privately owned); the remainder is either tribal-(83 percent) or government-owned (8 percent) land. As of 1993, only 9.9 percent of that total acreage was arable, with most of it in tribal hands or leased to Fijian Indian farmers, who produce 90 percent of Fiji's sugar cane. As these leases expire and the land is returned to indigenous growers, major disruptions in sugar-cane production can be expected.
• With 64.9 percent of Fiji’s, land area being forest and woodland, timber is also economically important, especially pine and mahogany. Attempts since the mid-1980s to bolster the industry, and offset Fiji's dependence on sugar, have encouraged significant strides in timber production. In 1999, timber provided US$27.6 million in export revenue, a 45 percent increase over 1994 levels.
• The fishing industry, especially tuna harvesting, also shows significant promise. Fiji controls a 200-nautical mile (370.4-kilometer) economic exclusion zone around its shoreline. In 1998 fishing brought Fiji US$24.9 million in overseas earnings, and tuna is Fiji's fourth largest export earner.
• Fiji also exports copra (dried coconut meat), ginger, and coconut oil, as well as bananas, rice (a product for which Fiji is aiming at self-sufficiency), cereals and vegetables, pineapples and other tropical fruits.
• Copra, in particular, has benefited from the removal in 1998 of the ban on its export; since the licensing of a second copra-buying company, prices for producers have increased considerably. The discovery of kava's (a shrubby pepper) medicinal qualities and its potential as a pharmaceutical ingredient have also fueled the growth of a small but promising export industry.