CHICAGO, Nov 23 (Reuters) - U.S. soybean futures climbed to
$12 a bushel on Monday for the first time in four years, buoyed
by worries about dry conditions in parts of Brazil and Argentina
that stoked supply concerns, analysts said.
Corn advanced, also lifted by worries about dryness in South
America, and wheat futures followed the firm trend.
As of 1:05 p.m. CST (1905 GMT), Chicago Board of Trade
January soybean futures were up 12-1/2 cents at $11.93-1/2
per bushel after touching $12 in opening moves, the highest
price for a most-active soybean futures contract since
June 2016.
CBOT March corn was up 4 cents at $4.32-1/4 a bushel
and March wheat was up 4-1/2 cents at $6.04 a bushel.
Weekend rains were limited to far northern areas of Brazil's
soy belt, space technology company Maxar said in a crop weather
note, and forecasts for this week were not much better.
"Rainfall amounts are expected to be light in most areas,
which will maintain dryness concerns across most of Brazil,
stressing corn and soybeans," the Maxar note said.
Brazil is the world's top soybean exporter and Argentina is
No. 3 after the United States.
The Chicago soybean futures forward curve shows prices have
jumped for all contracts through to the middle of next year.
Corn futures drew additional support from export demand. The
U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed private sales of
334,000 tonnes of U.S. corn to unknown destinations, the latest
in a series of daily corn sales announcements.
"Corn is also firm on poor South American crop weather,
including in Argentina, with more export demand also expected,
with U.S. corn looking the cheapest in the world," said Matt
Ammermann, StoneX commodity risk manager.
CBOT wheat futures followed the strength in corn and
soybeans, but gains in K.C. hard red winter wheat were
capped by weekend rains that bolstered crop prospects in parts
of Kansas and Oklahoma, two of the top U.S. producers of the
grain.
"K.C. wheat might be reflecting a little of moisture that
they saw yesterday in Kansas," said Tom Fritz, a partner with
EFG Group in Chicago.
(Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Naveen
Thukral in Singapore;
Editing by Mark Heinrich and Barbara Lewis)