Rosario slashes Argentina soy crop to 37m mt, corn at 32m mt

Argentina's soybean crop is set to fall another 3 million mt from last month to 37 million mt, with yields falling 0.15 mt/ha to 2.2 mt/ha, the Rosario Board of Trade said Wednesday.

The biggest month-on-month loss was seen in the province of Cordoba, down 1.3 million mt, while projections in Buenos Aires are down 700,000 mt and Santa Fe is set to lose 400,000 mt.

Soybean harvest progression is, however, eight percentage points ahead of last year at 28%.

The harvest in the centre of the country, currently at 85%, shows “enormous differences in yields”, with the average yield at 3.45 mt/ha, “but it is far from compensating for the productivity failure indicated in Entre Rios, north and centre of Santa Fe, west of Cordoba and Pampean region”.

The Rosario Board of Trade’s forecast is the most pessimistic to date, falling below Buenos Aires Grain Exchange’s (BAGE) recent forecast of 38 million mt.

The Rosario-based exchange kept its estimate for the countries corn crop unchanged at 32 million mt, based on average yields at 5.98 mt/ha.

While early corn plantings show yields at the anticipated level – with some areas showing a year-on-year improvement – a lack of rain in March means late corn plantings are headed to their worst result on record, the exchange said.