October 15, 2011

 

Brazil's 2011/12 soy production to increase 5%

 

 

Higher output and expanded cultivation may allow Brazil to raise this year's record yield by 5% in the 2011/12 crop, according to the head of grain crushing industry association Abiove Friday (Oct 14).

 

Carlo Lovatelli, president of Abiove, Brazil's Association of Vegetable Oil Industries, said he believed investments in the sector had risen, helped by higher prices for the oilseed and that this would help keep output on an upward trajectory.

 

"The soy producer has capital, is buying machinery and tools and is investing more in fertilizers so productivity would tend to rise," Lovatelli said, bearing in mind that the crop's success still relied heavily on the right weather.

 

Rising Brazilian output coinciding with an expected drop in the US harvest would also assure a bigger slice of the global soy market for Brazil, he said.

 

Abiove's optimistic view for the next crop counters the government's expectation of smaller output. Conversely, Abiove's estimate for the now finished 2010/11 crop, at 74.3 million tonnes is less than the government view of 75 million.

 

Abiove's expectation of a 5% increase would take output to a fraction over 78 million tonnes.

 

Lovatelli said he expected both the area planted and the yields to rise though the government has taken the opposing view that yields were likely to fall.

 

"These are the arguments that reinforce the idea that soy should maintain recent performance in the coming harvests, unless there is some new factor unknown to us, bad weather, drought, and none of this is forecast. I think it is going to be another good year for Brazilian soy," he said.