May 15, 2006

 

Argentina's 2005/06 soybean crop 81 percent collected

 

 

Mainly dry weather in Argentina this week allowed farmers to pick up the pace of collecting the 2005/06 soybean crop, putting collected area at 81 percent by Thursday, the Agriculture Secretariat reported Friday (May 12).

 

That lifts the pace from 73 percent a week ago, but keeps it down three percentage points from a year earlier.

 

Even though annual pace appears to be slower, farmers are actually making pretty quick progress given that area is up around 800,000 hectares from a year ago.

 

As of Friday, farmers had collected 12,276,910 hectares.

 

Planted area totals 15.182 million hectares, compared with 14.4 million a year ago.

 

According to the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange, the average yield last week was 2.7 tonnes/hectare. By Saturday farmers had produced 32.434 million tonnes of soy.

 

The Exchange has estimated planted area totals 15.62 million hectares, up from 14.67 million hectares a year earlier.

 

Last year farmers produced a record 38.3 million tonnes of soy, according to the Secretariat, which has forecast output this season at a record 40 million tonnes.

 

The Exchange has forecast 2005/06 output at 40.4 million tonnes while the US Department of Agriculture sees Argentina's soybean production at 40.5 million tonnes.

 

 

Corn

 

Farmers had also harvested 61 percent of the 2005/06 corn crop by Thursday.

 

That puts the pace up from 53 percent a week ago but down from 74 percent a year earlier, when area was bigger. Excessively dry weather has slowed the work of farmers this season and lowered yields.

 

As of Thursday, farmers had harvested 1,434,070 hectares.