March 27, 2007

High corn harvests in Argentina indicate bumper stocks
 

High yields in Argentina's corn crop in 2006/07 production may reach to a record of 22.5 million tonnes, the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange said in its latest weekly report.

As the world's second biggest corn exporter after the United States, Argentina's above-average yields in corn being harvested across the country had the exchange raise its last output estimate by 500,000 tonnes.

"The total volume and the average national yield will contribute to an all-time record, exceeding the very good results of the 2004/05 harvest (21 million)," said the report, which is updated to Friday (March 30).

Continuous rains have however slowed down harvest.

Farmers are expected to gather 25 percent of the 2.83 million hectares sowed with commercial-use corn on March 30--posting a 13.3 percentage increase compared to a week earlier but still lagging last season's pace by nearly five points.

The exchange said yields so far averaged 8.7 tonnes per hectare across the country -- 42.6 percent more than in the previous growing season, when drought hurt the corn crop.

Argentina's government forecast this season's corn output at 21.6 million tonnes, while the US Department of Agriculture has forecast Argentina's harvest at 21.5 million tonnes.

In Cordoba, the country's most-important corn-growing area, yields in the eastern district of Marcos Juarez, have registered a high of 11 and 11.5 tonnes per hectare.