Wheat declined for a second day as weather conditions improved in growing areas including the U.S. and as Russia was set to return to the export market, increasing supplies. Rice futures advanced. 　　Warm temperatures and showers were forecast in the Dakotas and northern Minnesota, benefiting spring wheat and corn crops, while scattered rains and cooler temperatures in Western Europe may aid winter-wheat crop development, Telvent DTN Inc. said in a forecast yesterday. Egypt said it plans to buy at least 55,000 metric tons of the grain, and Russia was added as an approved source. 　　“Cheap Russian wheat may be playing a bigger role” in global prices, said Erin FitzPatrick, an analyst at Rabobank International in London. “Egypt’s tender included Russia this time.” 　　September-delivery wheat fell 7.75 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $6.1925 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade by 10:49 a.m. London time, extending yesterday’s 1.3 percent slide. Milling wheat for November delivery on the NYSE Liffe exchange in Paris fell 4 euros, or 2.1 percent, to 190.50 euros ($272.46) a ton. 　　Exports of all grains from Russia’s southern Black Sea port of Novorossiysk will probably reach more than 600,000 tons this month, Moscow-based researcher SovEcon said yesterday. Shipments resume this month as the government ends a ban on exports first implemented in August last year, after the nation had the worst drought in at least half a century. 　　The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization today raised its wheat-production forecast 0.7 percent from a June 22 estimate to 675.6 million tons. Rice Gains 　　Corn for December delivery was little changed at $6.0775 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, after losing as much as 0.5 percent. The price has dropped in five of the past six sessions. Soybeans for November delivery also was little changed at $13.20 a bushel. 　　Rice futures gained 36.5 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $15.935 per 100 pounds in Chicago, the fifth straight increase. Prices have risen every session since the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on June 30 that growers in the country, the third-biggest exporter of the grain, planted 2.67 million acres with rice, down from 3.64 million a year earlier. To contact the reporters on this story： Luzi Ann Javier in Singapore at ljavier@bloomberg.net; Tony Dreibus in London at tdreibus@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story： Claudia Carpenter ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net

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