And ethanol promotion remains official policy.
The spectre of inflation loomed over agricultural markets after the US slashed key crop forecasts and warned of shortfalls in grains.
The agriculture department on Tuesday cut estimates of US corn yields for a third successive month, forecast record soyabean exports to China and warned of the slimmest cotton stocks since 1925.
“The combined production shortfalls and dramatic potential stock drawdowns mean a much tighter supply picture than just a few months ago,” the agency said in a separate grains report.
Benchmark Chicago corn futures soared above $6 a bushel for the first time since August 2008, before ending lower. Soyabeans rose 4.3 per cent and New York cotton futures posted a record above $1.51 a pound. The price rises have revived fears of a repeat of the global food crisis of 2007-08.
In Europe, milling wheat surpassed a peak reached after Russia banned grain exports in August in response to a devastating drought.
Abdolreza Abbassian, senior grains economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, said the report was “alarming”.
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