Chicago soybean futures climbed for a fifth consecutive session on Wednesday to trade near the previous session’s one-week top, as rising edible oil demand underpinned the market.
Wheat gained ground after closing largely unchanged on Tuesday, as tightening global supplies supported prices.
“There is more upside potential in prices, given the gains in the crude oil market and overall consumption,” said Phin Ziebell, an agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank in Melbourne.
The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board Of Trade (CBOT) added 0.1% at $12.29-3/4 a bushel by 0326 GMT, having firmed 0.5% on Tuesday when prices hit an Oct. 11 high of $12.39-1/4 a bushel.
Wheat added 0.5% to $7.39-1/2 a bushel and corn lost 0.1% to $5.29-3/4 a bushel.
Farmers need more space to grow crops to meet mounting demand for food and renewable fuel at a time of slowing growth in yields, consultancy AgResource said on Tuesday.
A renewable fuel push under U.S. President Joe Biden’s climate agenda is set to trigger a boom in soyoil use, reinforcing a worldwide picture of rising consumption of staple crops driven by China, Dan Basse, president of consultancy AgResource Co, told the GrainCom conference in Geneva.
Malaysian palm oil futures, which have climbed almost 15% this month, gained more ground on Wednesday on the back of higher demand.
The U.S. soybean harvest was 60% complete by Sunday, ahead of the five-year national average of 55%, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said. But progress was slower than normal in Illinois, the top U.S. soy state, as well as in Indiana and Ohio.
The U.S. corn crop was 52% harvested, the USDA said, ahead of the five-year average of 41% but behind the average analyst expectation of 54%.
Ukrainian farms have harvested 52 million tonnes of grain from almost 73% of its sowing area, with the yield averaging 4.48 tonnes per hectare, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.
Commodity funds were net buyers of CBOT soymeal, soybean and soyoil futures contracts on Tuesday and small net sellers of corn and wheat, traders said.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)