Market News & Headlines >> Argentine Soy Area Seen Up 1.2%

The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange on Tuesday estimated Argentine soybean producers will boost plantings by 1.2% over last year despite lower prices and persistent inflation in that country.

The exchange forecast producers will plant a record 20.6 million hectares (50.9 million acres) of soybeans, up 250,000 hectares from last year’s plantings. In comparison, USDA has forecast Argentina’s harvested soybean area at 20 million hectares, while the U.S. agricultural attaché in Buenos Aires recently forecast harvested area at 21 million hectares.

In a news release on its website, the exchange said soybean area is expected to rise significantly in the southern part of Argentina’s crop belt with producers there shifting land out of corn and sunseed due to lower planting costs and a better market for soybeans.

In contrast, producers on the northern fringes of the crop belt may shift acres into regional crops or livestock production due to dry conditions and because soybean yields have been down there in recent years due to insect problems.

Large areas of Argentina’s far north continue to face a moisture deficit which, if not reversed in the coming months would impact negatively on soybean area in the Northwest and Northeast regions, the exchange said. In contrast, excessively wet conditions could limit soybean area in parts of Buenos Aires province, and some areas of Cordoba and Santa Fe provinces are also too wet.