August 24, 2004

Argentina's 2003-04 Corn Crop 99% Collected

Farmers made little progress last week toward finishing collection of Argentina's s 2003-04 corn crop, the Agriculture Secretariat said Monday.

As of Friday, farmers had collected 99% of the crop, a figure that has not changed since the end of July.

A total of 2,089,620 hectares have been collected so far, while 712,088 hectares have been lost because of bad weather, disease or other problems, the Secretariat said.

Area stands at 2.806 million hectares, according to the Secretariat.

According to the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange, collectible area measured 2.172 million hectares. All of this had been collected four weeks ago, according to the exchange said. The exchange said output totaled 13.109 million tons.

The average yield was 6.04 tons per hectare, down from 6.7 tons a year ago, according to the exchange. According to the Secretariat, the average yield is 6.1 tons/hectare.

The Secretariat sees 2003-04 corn production at 12.7 million tons, down from about 15 million a year ago.

The USDA has forecast corn output this year at 12.5 million tons.