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Global Grain Surplus Sows Trouble (SCOTT KILMAN, 6/20/10, WSJ)

Some traders and economists are speculating that if the U.S. and world economies don't heat up soon, surpluses could turn into price-depressing gluts. While cheap grain is good news for consumers and livestock producers, excessive supplies increase a government's cost for farm subsidies and tend to ignite trade fights between the big farming powers.

This tension is growing partly because many of the farmers in the U.S. Midwest who were plagued by rainy growing seasons in recent years are having few problems so far this year.

Although the corn harvest is months away, farmer Clay Mitchell of Buckingham, Iowa, is preparing his storage bins for what's shaping up as a record-large crop. The corn plants are already as tall as his chest, helped by a warm spring that permitted early planting, followed by well-timed summer rains.

"So far, this has been the best growing season ever," says the 37-year-old newlywed, who planted 1,600 acres of corn.

In some northern Texas towns, the unfolding wheat harvest is so big that farmers delivering grain to local elevators in recent weeks have had to wait all day in long lines of trucks. Some elevators are so full that wheat is being stored in cotton warehouses.