December 20, 2005

Argentina's 2005-06 wheat crop 40 percent harvested

Argentina's farmers had harvested 40 percent of the 2005-06 wheat crop by Saturday, the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange reported Monday.

That puts the collection pace up from 31.5 percent a week ago. It was not clear how the pace compared with that of the previous year. Planted area totalled 4.898 million hectares, down from 6.09 million hectares a year ago, the Exchange said.

By Saturday farmers had harvested 1,956,970 hectares, putting production so far at 5,227,624 tonnes.

The Exchange expects farmers to produce 11.4 million tonnes of wheat this season.

The average yield last week rose to 2.67tonnes/hectare, up from 2.56tonnes/hectare a week earlier and 1.67tonnes/hectare two weeks ago.

If the Exchange's forecast holds, it would put output down 30 percent from a year ago, when farmers produced a record 16.345 million tonnes. Dry weather and low wheat prices led farmers to plant less wheat this season and year-on-year production will decline because of this.

The USDA, which has forecast the average yield this season at 2.39 tonnes/hectare, sees final output totalling 12.1 million tonnes.

Argentines plant wheat May through August and harvest it October through January.