AgRural boosts forecast for Brazil’s bumper 2023 corn crop

Agribusiness consultancy AgRural has further increased its estimate for Brazil’s corn output in 2023, it said on Monday, after positive yields were reported as farmers harvest their bumper second crop.

AgRural said in a statement it now forecasts the South American country’s total corn production this year to reach 135.4 million metric tons, up from its July estimate of 132.3 million tons.

The upward revision was driven by Brazil’s gigantic second corn crop, which the consultancy now expects to hit 105.6 million tons.

That is up from a previous projection of 102.9 million tons, which had already represented an increase when compared with AgRural’s initial expectations of 97.9 million tons for the crop because of favorable weather.

Second corn represents about 75% of Brazil’s national corn output in a given year and is mainly exported to various destinations in the second half of the year.

By Aug. 3, AgRural added, farmers in the country had harvested 64% of the area planted for their second corn crop in the center-south region, up 9 percentage points from the previous week.

Work in the fields still lags the previous season, the consultancy said, when at the same time 80% of Brazilian corn fields had been reaped.

The pace remains driven by top grain-producing state of Mato Grosso, where fieldwork has been practically completed, and the neighboring Goias state, it added.

“In the other states, harvest continued to lag the five-year average.”

Tags: corn, export, Brazil, estimate, Production, yields, forecast, AgRural, second-corn crop, harvest