Brazil’s Mato Grosso posts record corn exports in 2017

The center-west state of Mato Grosso accounted for 62.5% of Brazil’s record corn exports in 2017, according to a report by the state’s farm economics institute Imea, although corn exports are likely to fall this year due to late planting of the crop.

Brazil exported a record 29.2 million mt of corn in 2017, up 34% from the 21.8 million mt exported the year before owing to excellent weather during the 2016-17 growing season and the drought during the prior crop.

The leading soybean and corn-producing state of Mato Grosso accounted for 18.3 million mt of Brazil’s total corn exports in 2017, “thanks to the record harvest of the grain in the 2016/17 season”, Imea reported.

The institute also attributed the healthy shipments of the grain abroad to the “smooth operations at the country’s ports.”

The loading of corn competes directly against soybeans for use of the country’s berths, grain elevators and even warehouse capacity. Both crops registered record harvests and exports in 2017

Brazil exported 68.15 million mt of soybeans last year on the heels of a 114.1 million mt harvest, data from the Agriculture and Trade Ministries showed.

But the expansion of Brazil’s northern grain terminals in recent years has helped to take some pressure off the main grain ports in Brazil’s south.

Imea forecast that Mato Grosso’s corn export’s will fall this year to 15.58 million mt due to late planting of the summer soybean crop that will delay the sowing of the second-crop corn.

Brazil’s grain port of Santos in Sao Paulo state shipped a record 13.7 million mt of corn in 2017, up from 11.3 million mt the year before, while Paranagua in Parana state shipped 3.6 million mt from 2.8 million mt the year before, data from the Trade Ministry showed.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s expanding northern arc of grain export terminals are shipping increasing amounts of the grain

ADM’s and Glencore’s Barcarena terminal in the northern state of Para exported just over 3 million mt of the grain after shipping 1.3 million mt the year before.

The grain terminal in Sao Luis, in Maranhao state, developed by French commodities trader Louis Dreyfus and local soybean giant Amaggi, shipped 1.9 million mt of the grain last year after exporting 771,579 mt the year before, trade data showed.

And shipments of corn through Cargill’s terminal in Santarem on the lower Amazon River grew to 1.9 million mt last year from 735,403 mt in 2016.