July 6, 2004

Argentina's 2003-04 Corn 96% Collected By Saturday

As of Saturday, Argentinean farmers had collected 96.7% of the 2003-04 corn harvest. The pace of collection is up a smidgen from a year ago at this time, when 96.2% of the crop had been collected.

So far, farmers have produced 12.618 million tons.

Collectible area stands at 2.172 million hectares and about 2.1 million hectares of this have been collected.

The average yield last week was 6.01 tons per hectare, down from 6.71 tons a year ago at this time, according to the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange.

Yields have been declined this year because of excess of rain, the exchange said.

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.