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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: russwinter who wrote (12488)	4/23/2004 7:48:23 AM
From: russwinter	Respond to of 110194

Train Wreck du jour II: This is big stuff, and NOBODY will report it. I've been hoping the "who let the dogs out" commodity correction would see some spec liquidation in wheat or corn, but I guess they know better. Long and smal specs are long 147,801 futures w options in corn (14.4% of open interest), and 45,243 in wheat (21.1% of OI). Remember US consumer spending on food is three times that of various energy uses. Reuters China's wheat hit by stripe rust, likely to spread Friday April 23, 1:01 am ET SHANGHAI, April 23 (Reuters) - Two million hectares of China's wheat have been hit by stripe rust and the area could reach 6.7 million hectares by the year-end and hit output of the next crop, the Agriculture Ministry and traders said on Friday. "We have to control the disease damage on the wheat crop at all costs, and try to limit the infected areas to within five percent of the total wheat field," Agriculture Minister Du Qinglin was quoted as saying in a ministry report. Stripe rust is a disease that affects growth. The market was sticking to earlier output forecasts if the problem can be contained effectively, traders said. China, the world's top wheat producer and consumer, is set to reap its lowest winter wheat output in about 20 years due to unfavourable weather and a smaller acreage, with production seen at about 78 million tonnes this year, traders said. China's total wheat output is expected to hit 81-82 million tonnes this year, they said. "We'll be worried if the disease spreads to 6.7 million hectares as the ministry said. That'll mean that a third of the total acreage will be affected," said a trader in Beijing. It could hit China's next winter wheat crop, which is expected to be planted in September. China aims to raise wheat yields for this summer by an average of five kg per mu (0.067 hectare), or 75 kg per hectare, over the same period last year, according to a report published on the ministry's Web site www.agri.gov.cn. The report did not give figures for the current yield, but traders said that would represent a yield increase of about two percent.