May 26, 2008

Argentina nearly completes soy harvest

Argentina farmers on Thursday (May 22) had gathered 94 percent of the 16.5 million hectares planted with soy, 7 percentage points more than the prior week and beating last year's gathering pace by 9 points.

Soy yields in Argentina continue to show signs of earlier frost damage as farmers near the end of the 2007/08 harvest, the Agriculture Secretariat said on Friday.

The secretariat said some crops in the top grower had yields of 2.7 tonnes per hectare, while others were so badly affected that farmers did not bother to harvest them.

Argentina, the world's third-biggest soy exporter and top global exporter of soy oil and soymeal, produced a record 47.5 million tonnes of the oilseed last season, and both the government and the USDA forecast 2007/08 output of 47 million tonnes.