February 11, 2008

 

Soy crush up 11 percent in Argentina for 2007

 

 

Argentina's soycrush in 2007 was up 10.8 percent from 2006, according to the Agriculture Secretariat.

 

Argentina crushed 36.27 million tonnes of soy in 2007, compared to 32.73 million tonnes crushed a year earlier.

 

Soyoil production went up 13 percent from 6.16 million tonnes in 2006 to 6.96 million tonnes in 2007 while soymeal production was up 9.4 percent from 27.93 million tonnes to 25.52 million tonnes.

 

The USDA expects the country's soyoil consumption to rise to 1 million tonnes in local marketing year 2008/2009 due to increased production of biodiesel.

 

The increased crush follows record soy output last season, when favorable weather conditions and expanded area boosted production.

 

Argentina's soy production grew 17.5 percent to 47.6 million tonnes in 2006-07, up from 40.5 million tonnes a year earlier.

 

Argentina's soy production forecast is maintained at 47 million tonnes, according to a USDA forecast.

 

The country is the world's leading soymeal and soyoil exporter, but trails the US and Brazil in soy exports.

 

Sunflower seed

 

Dry weather cut sunseed production last year, with total production falling 8 percent to 3.5 million tonnes.

 

Sunseed crush was subsequently down 18.4 percent while sunseed oil production was down 22 percent to 1.22 million tonnes. 

 

The USDA maintains its forecast for sunflowerseed production to reach 4.6 million tonnes on a harvested area of 2.7 million hectares.

 

Meanwhile, the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange was less optimistic, saying in its weekly crop report Friday that production would probably reach 4.2 million tonnes.

 

However, it did note that rainfall at the end of January provided a boost to the developing crop.

 

Farmers have harvested 17.1 percent of the 2007-08 sunseed crop to date, 4 percentage points behind the pace last year, the exchange said. Early yields have averaged 1.86 tonnes per hectare, 21 percent higher than yields at this time last year, when drought challenged the crop.

 

Farmers planted 2.7 million hectares with sunseeds this season, up 13.2 percent from last year, according to the exchange.