With increased demands from the U.S. beef and ethanol industries, U.S. Corn supplies have reached a 15-year low and may be smaller than the government forecast last month, reports Businessweek. Stockpiles on Sept. 1, before the harvest, will drop 66 percent from a year earlier to 589 million bushels, a Bloomberg survey of 30 analysts showed. That’s 13 percent less than a March 10 estimate by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which will update its forecast today. Tightening supply led Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to raise its corn-price forecast last week.
About 40 percent of the crop is used to make ethanol. Corn futures have more than doubled in the past year to its highest levels since July 2008, as rising pork and beef prices encouraged demand from livestock producers and as U.S. export-sales expanded at the fastest pace in three years.