According to the experts of the Council, lately, world food prices tend to decline - in particular, the Index of Grain and Oilseed, calculated by the Council, due to the significant upward revaluation of U.S. resources and, as a result, favorable supply dynamics that emerged on the global market- resulted in a 4% decrease in comparison to the previous month. At the same time, however, volatility of wheat and corn futures on the CBOT market has increased rapidly- in past 20-day period the price has changed by as much as 35%.

The Council Experts have lowered their global grain consumption forecast by 5 million tons - to 1,875 million tons primarily due to the projected decline in corn and wheat consumption in the United States. World corn ending supply also rose by 5 million tons. Nevertheless, it is still at a six year record low.

Growth of reserves is planned, primarily due to corn, estimated reserves of which increased from 135 million tons to 143 million tons. Therefore, they will increase by 27 million tons, if compared with the previous season’s reserves by 10%. As for wheat, its reserves will increase by 2 million tons only.
Council’s evaluation of soybean market during 2012/13 MY largely has remained unchanged. As suggested previously, the leading players on the market will be the Latin American countries, while increase in world soybean production will be 11%. World soybean ending stock, even though will significantly decrease in China, where recently soy became quite scarce; yet, in the world in general, it will still grow by as much as 8%, compared to the previous year.

Projected structure of sown areas in the United States is so far left unchanged by the Council; although delayed sowing of early spring grains leads to believe that in the nearest future significant portion of fields, previously allocated for corn, will be shifted to a later one - soybean. Therefore, most likely, prices will react accordingly.