Chicago corn falls ahead of USDA's supply demand report

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures slipped on Wednesday as traders weighed Black Sea tensions before a closely watched USDA supply and demand report due Friday. Business Recorder reported that the most-traded corn contract shed 0.8 per cent to $5.29-1/4 a bushel by 0307 GMT. Another CBOT contract fell 0.6 per cent to $7.42-3/4 a bushel, while soybeans slipped 0.5 per cent to $13.10-1/4 a bushel.

Anticipated weak harvests in the Corn Belt are holding prices up, while forecaster Commodity Weather Group expects warmer and drier weather across the Midwest in the coming weeks. Last Friday's USDA figures showed harvesting had reached 5%, with 56% of the crop rated good to excellent. StoneX trimmed its average 2026 US corn yield estimate to 182.9 bushels per acre from 184.8 in its August 4 report.

Traders remain worried about a prolonged halt to Russian and Ukrainian grain exports from the Black Sea, even after US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff held talks in Moscow and Kyiv that did not yield a breakthrough. Ukraine's wheat output for 2026 reached 24.91 million metric tons, averaging 4.94 tons per hectare, and the harvest is nearly finished, the farm ministry said. China's August soybean imports fell 1.1 per cent year on year to 12.14 million tons, while January to August purchases rose 1.1 per cent to 74.11 million tons.