Corn futures in India hit a contract low on Friday and are expected to trade lower next week on sluggish demand from poultry feed makers, rising supplies from Bihar and sluggish export demand. Demand for poultry products drops in the summer as people eat less fatty foods in high temperatures. Supplies from the new season winter-sown crop in Bihar have started rising and are expected to increase further in a week.
“Demand from the poultry sector is weak because of high temperature in the summer. Exports are also subdued and exporters are just fulfilling their old commitments,” said a trader from Nizamabad in Andhra Pradesh. The key May contract for maize rabi recovered slightly to close 0.35 percent higher at 1,150 rupees ($5.47 per bushel) per 100 kg on the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX), after hitting a contract low of 1,139 rupees earlier in the day.
Maize is cultivated twice a year, during summer and winter, in Asia’s largest exporter of the grain, with a major contribution coming from the summer crop. India’s corn output is seen at 21.82 million tonnes in 2012/13, the farm ministry said in a forecast on Friday, compared with 21.76 million tonnes a year ago. India’s aggressive corn exports look set to hit a wall after a slide in global prices.
In Chicago, the key May corn contract on CBOT rose 0.29 percent to $6.99-1/2 per bushel at 1312 GMT. Chicago corn rose to a one-month high on Friday, on track for its biggest weekly rise since July, as wet weather continued to delay planting in the US Midwest, raising expectations for corn acres to switch to soybeans.
