September 6, 2010

 

Brazil to plant more soy

 

 

As the 2010/11 season starts in September, Brazilian soy producers are expected to plant more soy, but La Nina may restrict output at or below the record 2009/10 harvest.

 

Grain analysts in Brazil expected planted area of soy to grow modestly from the record 23.47 million hectares (58 million acres) due to firm soy prices.

 

Despite the expected bigger area, producers are unlikely to repeat the record harvest of 68-plus million tonnes brought in this year.

 

"Producers in Mato Grosso were sowing half their crops by mid-October last year. It started raining as well in August," said Alcindo Uggeri, president of the Rural Association in Novo Mutum, a major soy region in northern Mato Grosso that is often one of the first areas to plant. "This year, it will rain later. There is still no forecast for widespread rains in the region. At least Asian soy rust will be less a factor."

 

The global weather phenomenon La Nina, which is characterised by the cooling of ocean surface temperatures off the coast of Peru, tends to delay and reduce rainfall over Brazil's grain belt, especially the southern producing states of Parana and Rio Grande do Sul.

 

The two major southern grain states are prone to droughts during La Nina years.

 

Rains in the centre-west and Mato Grosso, Brazil's No. 1 soy producer, tend to be more reliable even in La Nina years but can be delayed.

 

Andre Dantas, an analyst at Ceagro in Mato Grosso, said he expected output from the region to be similar to last year's crop, even though planting should be greater.

 

"Producers will plant less early maturing soy and they will likely miss out on planting a winter corn crop. The harvest of the soy will be too late for that," Dantas said, adding that harvest of the past crop started in mid-December.

 

To plant a winter corn crop after harvesting the summer soy crop, producers must plant the corn by January or early February or the rains become too weak and the crop fails.

 

The Mato Grosso Foundation, which supports the state's massive farm sector with research said,"Rains may arrive later in the months of October and November in Mato Grosso."

 

"The influence of La Nina can be negative if the producer is not prepared and fails to use the correct method of planting," the foundation's researcher Fabiano Siquera said.