Price of US corn falls after China curbs purchase of feed ingredient

The price of corn in Chicago continues to fall, extending four weeks of declines on speculation that demand for US exports will decrease after China put curbs on purchases of a feed ingredient made from the grain.

China’s quarantine agency suspended issuing permits to import US dried distillers’ grains, an ethanol by-product known as DDGS, according to three trading executives whose applications were denied. Permits were halted because the Chinese government deems DDGS a high risk of containing MIR 162, a genetically modified strain of corn that China hasn’t approved, said sources who asked not to be identified.

Corn “is down today on the back of that Chinese news,” Dave Norris, an independent grain broker in Harrogate, England, said by e-mail. “It seems to put resolving the MIR 162 issue even further away down the line.”