June 24, 2008

Argentina's soy crush in May was 3.3 million tonnes, down 4 percent from the same month last year, according to the Agriculture Secretariat's latest data.

As a result, soyoil production fell 5.3 percent to 622,447 tonnes while soymeal output was down 2.4 percent to 2.59 million tonnes.

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

Although soy rush is down, sunseed production was up strongly, rising 82 percent to 466,588 tonnes from 256,293 tonnes a year earlier.

Sunseed oil production in May doubled to 195,307 tonnes from 94,698 tonnes last year.