Grains, Other Futures Gain

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster loosed its second flurry of economic fallout on American agricultural markets Thursday, triggering sharply higher futures prices for grains, soybeans, livestock and other commodities. Many contracts advanced the limit allowed for daily trading on renewed concern that European crops, livestock, land and water supplies might be more endangered by radioactive contamination than previously believed.

European reports said that a fire still was smoldering at the reactor site and there were indications that the molten fuel core may have burned through the plant’s floor and threatened ground water.

Also, a British member of the European Parliament quoted unidentified sources as telling him that the Soviet Union had asked the Common Market to sell it huge amounts of food to replace contaminated crops and cattle.

“This (the food request) was denied before the opening, but the market chose to ignore the denial,” said Dale Gustafson, an analyst in Chicago with Drexel Burnham Lambert. Some commodities had moved the price limit for two days on the Chicago Board of Trade last week after the initial news of the accident.