Ethanol plants and foreign buyers are gobbling the nation's corn supplies, pushing prices as high as $3.40 a bushel, the Agriculture Department said. Farmers haven't seen prices this high for more than a decade – a range of $3 to $3.40 a bushel, according to the new crop forecast. That's up 10 cents from December.
AdvertisementRobust prices have made corn more expensive to feed livestock. High prices have forced some producers to switch to hay or other feed, but the drop in feed use was more than offset for corn farmers by growing demand from foreign markets, according to the crop report. The amount of corn used for ethanol, forecast at 2.15 billion bushels, was unchanged from last month.
