Breaking News-RTRS-UPDATE 3-Big U.S. soy, corn crops may deflate price boom

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - U.S. farmers will reap their largest soybean crop ever and the second-largest corn crop this year, mammoth harvests that will deflate an ethanol-fueled price boom, the government said on Wednesday.
Along with wheat, corn and soybeans are the foundation of the U.S. food supply. They are mixed into livestock rations, milled and crushed to become food and beverage ingredients, and employed as lubricants and feedstocks for motor fuels.
In its first estimate of the fall harvest, the Agriculture Department estimated the soybean crop would be a record 3.199 billion bushels, up 8 percent from 2008, and corn would total 12.761 billion bushels, up 5 percent from 2008 and the second-largest on record.
Bumper crops and lower grain prices will help constrain food prices, said a USDA forecaster. Prices are forecast to rise by a modest 3 percent this year and 3.5 percent in 2010, compared to a 5.5 percent increase -- largest since 1990 -- in 2008, when grain and oil prices set record highs.