Argentine soybean harvest estimate cut to 41 mln tonnes

Argentina’s soybean harvest for the 2022/23 cycle is estimated at 41 million tonnes, the Buenos Aires grains exchange said on Thursday, down from the 48 million tonnes previously estimated, after agricultural areas were hit by drought.

Argentina is the world’s leading exporter of processed soybean oil and meal, but the productivity of its main crop is being affected by a drought that began last May.

The phenomenon, the worst in 60 years, led the Rosario grains exchange on Wednesday to sharply reduce its harvest estimates and the Buenos Aires exchange to say soybean production forecast could drop up to 25 percent.

“The dry weather and high temperatures continued to determine the progress of the soybean implantation work,” the Buenos Aires exchange said in a report on Thursday, adding that some 500,000 hectares were left out of the current campaign.

Until Wednesday, Argentine farmers had planted 89.1 percent of the 16.2 million hectares planned for cultivation, the grains weekly report showed.

The exchange also cut its estimate for the 2022/23 corn planting area to 7.1 million hectares, down from the 7.3 million hectares previously expected but without announcing changes in its 50 million tonnes harvest forecast.

So far, producers have planted 83 percent of the area planned for corn, the exchange said.

Harvest of Argentine wheat for the 2022/23 campaign ended last week, with a final production of 12.4 million tonnes, well below the 22.4 million tonnes collected in the previous campaign, also due to the severe lack of water that affected the plants during the campaign.

Argentina is a leading world exporter of wheat with Brazil and Indonesia as its biggest consumers.

Tags: harvest, soybean oil, estimate, soybean, Production, drought, soybean meal, crop, Argentina