Crop futures gain with export limits, weather straining supply

Crop prices gained as global vegetable-oil markets face increasingly strained supplies and wet, chilly weather delays North American plantings. 

In oilseed markets, top palm-oil shipper Indonesia is about to halt some refined exports and will hold a briefing later Wednesday on its crude palm oil policy. Farmers in Canada are also cutting back on canola acres, and mosts ports in Ukraine have been shut by Russia’s invasion, limiting agricultural shipments from the sunflower-oil heavyweight. 

Meanwhile, adverse weather across the U.S. and Canada is slowing plantings of key spring crops. “Little to no field activity” is likely for two or three more weeks after snow storms and sleet, the North Dakota Wheat Commission said Tuesday. And major corn-growing states like Illinois and Indiana were blanketed by cold advisories as of early Wednesday. 

“U.S. corn planting, only 7% complete by April 24, is progressing at the slowest pace since 2013,” the Department of Agriculture said in a weather report. “Frost and freezes could threaten temperature-sensitive crops — including blooming fruits and emerged corn — as far south as the middle Mississippi Valley, the Ohio Valley, and the middle Atlantic States.”

Corn and soybean futures climbed in Chicago, and spring wheat neared a decade high in Minneapolis. Soybean oil scaled an all-time high, and canola in North America rose to C$1,100.10 per ton, putting prices near the record reached in March. 

Milling wheat and rapeseed in Paris also rallied. Futures for the oilseed have risen unchecked for months, as the conflict in Ukraine exacerbates already scarce supplies, German oilseed group UFOP said Wednesday. Snow and cold in Canada add to concerns about sowing, and South American soy harvests have been curtailed by drought, it said.