UPDATE 2-High US prices as soy, then corn, supplies tighten
* U.S. soybean stockpile to dip below two-week supply
* Rainy Midwest spring to lower corn yield, harvest
* Soybean carry-over stocks smallest in 32 years
* Corn carry-over stocks in 2010 smallest in six years
(Adds farm gate prices, impact on ag-related company stocks)
WASHINGTON, June 10 (Reuters) - U.S. livestock feeders, exporters and foodmakers will have less than a two-week supply of soybeans, barely enough to keep running, when the fall harvest begins, the government forecast on Wednesday.
Analysts said the corn market faces a similar squeeze in 2010, a ripple effect of a rainy spring that delayed planting and will reduce this year's corn harvest. The corn stockpile would drop to a four-week supply.
The tight supplies are forecast to boost farm gate prices. Producers would sell this year's corn crop for a record $4.30 a bushel at the farm gate, up 10 cents from the 2008 crop, said the U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA). It forecast a farm gate price for soybeans of $10 a bushel for 2008 and 2009 crops, 10 cents below the record set by the 2007 crop.
Soybean supplies will rebound, with a record crop of 3.195 billion bushels projected by USDA for this year. Corn is projected at 11.935 billion bushels, but the crop could be smaller if bad weather blocked farmers from planting corn. [ID:nDAT001263] [ID:nN10435355]
"We'll know a lot more at the end of the month when the Acreage report comes out, when we'll see if producers planted as many corn acres as they indicated in March," said USDA chief economist Joe Glauber on USDA's radio news service.
Corn and soybeans are widely used in livestock rations and in an array of foods, besides serving as raw materials for biofuels. They are among the largest U.S. farm exports too.
Jack Scoville, vice president of Price Futures Group, said soybean users face "a pretty tight situation" with the stockpile forecast to bottom out at 110 million bushels, the smallest "carry over" in 32 years.
In seven of the past 10 years, the soybean stockpile actually was larger than forecast, said Darrell Good, a University of Illinois agricultural economist. He said high prices will help ensure America "will not run out of soybeans prior to harvest of the 2009 crop."
USDA's corn-crop projections assume plantings of 85 million acres. It will survey growers ahead of the Acreage report on June 30 to update plantings and project harvest area.
Private consultant John Schnittker said USDA's figures are "pretty conditional" now. Continued...
