Argentine’s agri. exports decline 13% y-o-y in Jan-May: BCR

Argentina exported a total of 43 million mt of grain and derivatives in the first five months of the year, a fall of 13% year-on-year amid smaller harvest volumes, a report by the Rosario Grain Exchange (BCR) said.

The overall fall came despite exports in the soybean complex reaching 16.6 million mt in the January-May period, an increase of 5.5 million mt.

But exports in the wheat complex fell 27% to 6.2 million mt, while corn shipments totaled 13 million mt, down 15% compared to the same period in 2020.

Emilce Terre, chief economist at the Rosario Board of Trade (BCR), told Agricensus that the lower export volume in the first five months of the year compared to the same stage of 2020 was chiefly due to lower exports in the corn and wheat segment as a consequence of drought conditions last year.

“In the case of wheat, drought conditions had negatively impacted production volumes and this is also having an impact in export volumes. In the corn segment, drought conditions in September and October of 2020... had also affected the first corn plantings,” Terre said.

“Due to this, many lots that were initially expected to be planted with first corn, were finally planted with second corn plantings in December. This is why the country now has more second corn crops compared to other cycles and this is also why the corn that was collected in March and April was lower compared to what was initially expected,” she added.

BCR also reported that Cargill was the biggest exporter of grains and oilseed derivatives in the 2019/20 marketing campaign, with 12.7 million mt.

That's up from 11.9 million mt in the previous marketing campaign.

Cargill was followed by Chinese-state owned company Cofco, with shipments of 11.7 million mt, a fall versus the 14.5 million mt handled in the previous campaign.

Other key exporters included Moreno Hermanos and ADM, with 10.4 million mt and 8.7 million mt respectively.

Argentine exports of grains, derivatives and oils totalled 89.78 million mt in the 2019/20 marketing season, down compared to the 98.74 million mt exported in the previous campaign, BCR said.

In the wheat segment, Cargill also led in the exports with 2.24 million mt, followed by Cofco, with 2.07 million mt and ADM with 1.84 million mt.

For corn, Cargill completed the hat-trick by topping the export list with a total of 5.61 million mt in the 2019/20 season, followed by ADM, with 5.51 million mt and Cofco, with 5.27 million mt.

Meanwhile, Cofco led exports in the soybean segment, with almost 1.21 million mt, followed by ADM with nearly 1.20 million mt and ACA with 630,000 mt, according to BCR.