BAGE trims Argentina soy 2 mil mt, corn 3 mil mt on drought damage

The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange (BAGE) cut its 2017/18 soy crop by an additional 2 million mt, Thursday, with the new estimate 15.5 million mt down versus last year’s, data released Thursday shows.

Alongside that, it slashed its corn crop estimate by 3 million mt, as continuous droughts persists and important losses are suffered in key planting areas.

The soy production estimate now stands at 42 million mt, down 12 million mt since BAGE’s first estimate of this season.

“It is not ruled out that surface losses will continue to increase during the coming weeks,” the report warned on the soy crop.

Uncertainty in the north eastern region remains high as the lack of rains put the majority of its 3 million mt crop at high risk, with the region having difficulties in sustaining the condition of the crop.

BAGE estimates that over half of the 1333 million hectares in the north eastern region have been affected and it is already too late to recover yields in most areas in the center and south of the country.

Corn

For corn, the mounting fears for the 2017/18 crop were further stoked as BAGE slashed a another 3 million mt from its Argentina corn estimate taking it to 34 million mt.

That came hard on the heels of the USDA cutting its Argentina forecast to 36 million mt, making BAGE the most aggressive of the Argentina corn crop estimates, surpassing the Rosario Board of Trade’s 35 million mt.

With the harvest underway in the centre and south regions, yields look to be disappointing across the 6.5% of the area that has been harvested – some 350,000 ha – with yields at 3.2 mt/ha.

That compares with 4.65 mt/ha in the previous campaign.  

For the northeast and northwest regions, water levels are said to be better, “coinciding with the critical period of definition of crop yield,” according to the report, but across virtually all other regions, the dryness has seen yields significantly underperform versus the five-year average.

Core regions are averaging between 70 and 80 qq/ha, or 3.42-3.9/mt ha, well below the average seen in the previous season.