Argentina's agriculture ministry ups soy planting estimate, trims corn

Argentina’s Agriculture Ministry has increased marginally its estimate of the soybean planting area by 70,000 hectares to 16.75 million hectares.

In a move that goes against the trend of analysts cutting production output, the ministry said with 95% of the area seeded by January 18 it was confident that seeding would be complete.

It did, however, warn about the condition of the crop, which it said was “extremely variable”, adding that were problems due to a lack of water in Buenos Aires and La Pampa, a statement that chimed with Thursday’s statement from the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange.

Soybean futures have been volatile since December on the back of weather concerns in Argentina, which has the potential to cut the soybean crop and hit soymeal imports.

In terms of corn, the ministry cut its planting estimate to 8.7 million hectares from its December estimate of 8.8 million hectares amid planting rates that stand at 85%, down 7 percentage points on the year.

The planted area, however, is still up on the 8.48 million hectares planted in the 2016/17 campaign.

The condition was said to be 76% good to very good, the rest regular or bad.

With 99% of the harvest complete, the ministry nudged its wheat production estimate up 500,000 mt from its December report to 18.5 million mt, due to an increase in expected yields.

The production figure is 0.6% higher than the 2016/17 production level.