December 5, 2008

Recent rains brought much needed moisture to a large part of Argentina's agricultural area and will allow for renewal of crop planting in the coming week -- which had largely halted due to the dry weather. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the 2008/09 soy planted area is forecast to 18.2 million hectares, an increase of 10 percent over last year's level. Production is expected to reach 50.5 million tonnes as a result of the larger area, unchanged from USDA's official number.

This increase in area is expected mainly due to an initial drop in planted area for corn and sunflowers due to high input costs and low prices, in addition to some replanting of lost wheat, corn, and sunflower area with soy due to drought.

Production is expected to reach 50.5 million tonnes as a result of the larger area, unchanged from USDA's official number. The area increase is expected mainly due to an initial drop in planted area for corn and sunflowers due to high input costs and low prices, in addition to some lost wheat, corn, and sunflower area (due to drought) replanted with soy. Argentina's Secretariat of Agriculture (SAGPyA) reports that as of November 27, roughly half of its projected 18 million hectares of the 2008/09 crop had been planted.

Recent rains brought much needed moisture to a large part of Argentina's agricultural area and will allow for renewal of soy planting in the coming week -- which had largely halted due to the dry weather. It is expected that the drought situation will have a somewhat negative impact on overall soy yields due to delayed planting of first-crop soy in many areas that will now be planted with shorter (second-crop) varieties that produce lower yields. Projected exports of soy for 2008/09 are unchanged, expected to reach 15.3 million tonnes. Post maintains USDA 2008/09 crush numbers at 36.2 million tonnes, which will generate an expected production of 28.3 million tonnes of soymeal and 6.9 million tonnes of soyoil.