Argentina soy harvest slow; forecast maintains

Argentina's 2009-10 soy harvest moved forward over the past week, but is behind the pace set last season, the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange said in its weekly crop report Thursday (March 25).

To date, 8.5% of the crop has been harvested, 5.8 percentage points behind the pace set last season. Recent showers have slowed down the harvest, according to the Exchange.

But dry weather is expected this week, which will allow farmers to make significant progress in getting the beans in from the fields, the exchange said.

Yields so far vary widely depending on whether or not the crop was treated with fungicides, but the exchange maintained its forecast for record production of 53.5 million tonnes.

Argentina is the world's top soymeal and soyoil exporter, and ranks third for soy shipments.