Grain output is growing as farmers chase high prices, according to US government figures, suggesting food inflation pressures may abate in the months to come. Farmers would harvest 681.2m tonnes of wheat and record crops of 860.1m tonnes of corn and 461.4m tonnes of rice in the current year, the US Department of Agriculture said, as it raised output forecasts for each grain in its monthly report. The brightening outlook comes after grain prices returned to levels last reached during the food crisis of 2007-8. US fields endured a brutally hot summer, but elsewhere, farmers largely avoided the unfavourable weather that hit yields last year. “It is a function of higher prices. Farmers increased plantings this year,” said Erin Fitzpatrick, agricultural analyst at Rabobank. Futures weakened on the report, with CBOT December wheat ending down 5.2 per cent at $6.26¾ a bushel and CBOT December corn falling 0.7 per cent to $6.40¾ a bushel. Corn has declined from its record high of $7.99¾ of early June. Wheat has softened after Russia and Ukraine lifted export bans. World grain production Grain markets could rise again if La Niña, the Pacific weather pattern, strengthens, hurting crops in exporting nations Argentina and Brazil. Russia indicated this week it would impose a cap on grain exports, though it will not be an outright ban. Rice supplies could be curbed as the Thai government buys the grain from farmers and stockpiles it. Grain supplies remain on a razor’s edge in the US. The USDA cut its estimate of the size of this year’s domestic corn crop by 0.5 per cent to 12.4bn bushels, though it left yield forecasts unchanged. Corn stocks by next summer will total 866m bushels, an estimate 29 per cent larger than the agency’s previous forecast. Crop shortfalls in the US have been supplanted by robust and often lower priced harvests elsewhere. Russia’s wheat production will rise by 35 per cent to 56m tonnes this year while Ukraine’s corn crop will total 21m tonnes, 9m higher than last year, the USDA said. China may need fewer imports after growing what the USDA estimates will be a record 182m tonne crop.