U.S. agriculture markets jump during frigid weather

 "Bone-chilling cold across the U.S. farm belt riled agriculture markets at midweek as concerns over crop damage and delayed export shipments sent prices of key food commodities soaring," Karl Plume reports for Reuters.

Hard winter wheat prices hit the highest levels in six weeks because of worries that crops will be damaged by the freeze. Cattle prices too hit a seven-week high because of concerns that the cold could slow cattle production at feedlots. And exporters jostled to buy barge loads of corn and soybeans to get them down the Illinois River before it froze. After it did freeze, Gulf Coast exporters turned to shipments along the Ohio River, which wasn't iced over. An anonymous grain barge trader said exporters are trying to get hold of bushels now because there won't be anything coming off the Illinois River for a few weeks, Plume reports.

Though the worst of the cold in the farm belt is likely past, forecasters say temperatures will be well below normal through the end of the week, and ice accumulation will continue in the upper Mississippi and Illinois River basin over the next four days, Plume reports.