June 15, 2004

Argentina's 2003-04 Corn 88.6% Collected By Saturday
 
Farmers had collected 88.6% of the 2003-04 corn harvest by Saturday. The pace of collection is down from a year ago at this time, when 89.8% of the crop had been collected.
 
Collection efforts are being held up because heavy rains during the month of May flooded the soil on many farms, increasing the humidity levels of grains and making it hard to collect production, the exchange said.
 
So far, farmers have produced 11.75 million tons, according to the exchange.
 
Collectible area stands at 2.2 million hectares and 1.923 million hectares have been collected thus far.
 
The average yield last week was 6.11 tons per hectare, down from 6.71 tons a year ago at this time, according to the exchange.
 
Yields have been declined recently because of excess of rain, the exchange said last week. If this trend continues, yields may fall to below 6.0 tons per hectare.
 
The exchange expects final output to total 13 million tons.
 
The USDA has forecast 2003-04 corn production at 12.5 million tons and the Secretariat has projected output at 12.4 million.
 
Last year, Argentina produced 15.04 million tons of corn, according to the Secretariat.