Aug. 26—The corn market has seen drastic volatility. The day the August USDA supply and demand report was released corn traded at a low near $5.04 per bushel. At press time it was trading at $6. That incremental move comes in less than a week for what used to be a price move in a corn marketing year. There is no doubt that producers and end users are in awe with price moves.

The USDA's August supply and demand estimate yielded a larger carry-out versus the previous estimate. The corn yield was bumped from 148.4 bushels per acre to 155 as crop conditions improved dramatically since June floods. With harvested acres up 400,000 acres and yield at 155 (the second highest yield on record), production was projected at 12.288 billion bushels, which is the second-highest production on record. With carry-in of 1.576 billion bushels, total supply was slated at 13.878 billion bushels, including 15 million bushels of imports. With prices down the USDA expected more demand to prosper. Ethanol and feed demand increased by 150 million and 100 million bushels, respectively. As a result the projected ending stocks value is 1.133 billion bushels, equating to a mere 8.9 percent carry-out-to-use ratio.



Internationally, world coarse grain in 2008-‘09 is projected up 20.1 million tons to 1,089.1 million. World corn production is expected to increase to 789.58 million metric tons. Most of this increase is in U.S. corn production. Brazil corn exports were decreased by 2 million metric tons while the EU-27 is expected to import 2.5 million metric tons less corn in 2009. EP