February 3, 2009

Argentina's soy and other crops are expected to receive denser and more extensive rainfall from a cold front this Thursday (February 5) and Friday (February 6), helping improve soil and crop conditions hit by the worst drought in decades, weather forecasters said Monday.

 

The front will first hit fields in southern Buenos Aires province and then move north over the farm belt, Liliana Nunez, head of agriculture weather forecasts at the state-run National Weather Service, told Dow Jones Newswires.

 

"It will bring more organized precipitations that will fall over a wide area," and the lower temperatures will slow soil evaporation and help crop growth, she said by telephone.

 

This will mark a change from the scattered showers dominating the drought of the past months, with rainfall averaging 10 millimetres.

 

Argentina is suffering its longest dry spell in decades, with many parts of the farm belt so far this year posting the lowest precipitation in 47 years. The reduction has been between 40 percent and 60 percent compared with historic averages, according to the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange.

 

The pattern of scattered storms will continue this week until the cold front hits Thursday, Nunez said.

 

Jose Luis Aiello, a climatologist at the Rosario Grain Exchange, expects the cold front to bring rainfall of more than 50 millimetres over a wide area of the farm belt on Thursday and early Friday.

 

This isn't enough to end the drought conditions, "but it will help the soy crop so that yields won't fall so much," Aiello said.

 

The cold front is a potential sign of a change in longer-term weather patterns, but this is still too early to tell, Nunez and Aiello said.

 

Aiello expects, after the cold front, five to six days of good weather before the arrival of another front.

 

In a recent forecast, the National Weather Service said it expects precipitations will be either lower than normal or normal between February and April of this year, meaning that soil-moisture deficits will remain at current levels.

 

The farm belt "needs more rain and it needs it over an extensive area," Nunez said. "It needs more than 100 millimetres to get out of the drought so that there is more soil moisture for the crops."

 

The severity of the drought led the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange to cut its 2008-09 soybean production estimate to 34.5 million to 38.2 million tonnes, or 17 percent to 25 percent less than the 2007-08 season's 46.2 million tonnes. The US Department of Agriculture is expecting Argentina to produce a record 49.5 million tonnes of soy this season.

 

"More rain is needed" for the soy crop, said Sebastian Olivero, director of agriculture consulting firm Agro-Tecei Consultores.

 

"The recent rains [over the past week] have helped keep production estimates from continuing to fall," he said. "But rain is needed now so that the crop doesn't continue to deteriorate" in condition, which would hurt yields.

 

"February is an important month for soy" development and so moisture is needed, he added.

 

The dry spell has hit the corn and sunflower crops hardest, with the exchange now suggesting that corn output will plunge by 33 percent to 40 percent to just 12.3 million to 13.7 million tonnes from 20.5 million tonnes in 2007-08. The USDA expects 18 million tonnes of corn to come from Argentina this season.

 

Sunflower seed production is expected to fall between 20 percent and 32 percent from the 4.65 million tonnes grown last season, according to the exchange. The USDA is expecting sunflower seed output of 3.8 million tonnes.