U.S. farmers, the world’s biggest wheat exporters, probably planted the most winter grain in three years, expanding acreage from a century-low reached in 2009 just as a global supply glut swells to its biggest in a decade.
About 41.02 million acres, an area bigger than Illinois, were sown from September to November, 0.9 percent more than a year earlier, according to the average of 16 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That will add to world inventories set to rise 4 percent to 207.7 million metric tons, the most since 2000, the survey showed. Winter wheat makes up 74 percent of the U.S. crop, and the government gives its first estimate tomorrow.
Wheat traded in Chicago fell 31 percent from a 29-month high in February as a 47 percent surge in 2010 spurred more planting. That helped global food prices tracked by the United Nations drop 9.6 percent from a record, easing costs that drove global inflation higher. The second most widely held option gives owners the right to sell wheat at $6 a bushel by February, 6.2 percent lower than now, Chicago Board of Trade data show.
“We have ample supplies of wheat, and we just keep on producing more,” said Shawn McCambridge, the senior grain analyst at Jefferies Bache Commodities LLC in Chicago, who anticipates declining prices. “We’ll need normal-type weather conditions this spring, but in general, we’re going over the winter without really much of a dramatic concern.”
