LOWER ASCS CORN PRICES TO AFFECT TEN STATES

  The Agriculture Department's
  widening of Louisiana gulf differentials will affect county
  posted prices for number two yellow corn in ten states, a USDA
  official said.
      All counties in Iowa will be affected, as will counties
  which use the gulf to price corn in Illinois, Indiana,
  Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama
  and Louisiana, said Ron Burgess, Deputy Director of Commodity
  Operations Division for the USDA.
      USDA last night notified the grain industry that effective
  immediately, all gulf differentials used to price interior corn
  would be widened on a sliding scale basis of four to eight cts,
  depending on what the differential is.
      USDA's action was taken to lower excessively high posted
  county prices for corn caused by high gulf prices.
      "We've been following this Louisiana gulf situation for a
  month, and we don't think it's going to get back in line in any
  nearby time," Burgess said.
      Burgess said USDA will probably narrow back the gulf
  differentials when and if Gulf prices recede. "If we're off the
  mark now because we're too high, wouldn't we be as much off the
  mark if we're too low?" he said.
      While forecasting more adjustments if Gulf prices fall,
  Burgess said no other changes in USDA's price system are being
  planned right now.
      "We don't tinker. We don't make changes lightly, and we
  don't make changes often," he said.
  

