| Updated:
Argentine floods hit food prices
Flood-hit Argentina will harvest corn later than expected this season, supporting already-high world food prices as consumer nations are forced to rely longer on thin US supplies.
Argentina is the number two corn exporter after the US, where the worst drought in decades trampled this year’s crop. With food stocks hit by dry weather in breadbaskets Russia and Australia as well, importers are looking to South America. But Argentine growers have said they will produce 20 per cent less corn than initially forecast due to excessive August-October rains that turned prime Pampas farmland into unplantable mush.