Market News & Headlines >> Big South American Crops Highlighted

Tuesday reports from USDA and CONAB, the supply department of Brazil’s agriculture ministry put the spotlight on large South American corn and soybean production for 2016/17, but corn and soybean traders quickly turned their attention to U.S. planting weather. 

In its monthly supply/demand update, USDA pegged Brazil’s 2016/17 soybean production at 111.00 million metric tons, up 3 million tons from its previous estimate in March and up 15.0% from last year’s drought-shortened crop. The USDA revision came hours after CONAB raised its estimate of Brazil’s crop to 110.16 million tons from a March level of 107.61 million tons. CONAB pegged Brazil's nationwide soybean yield at 3.268 MT per hectare (48.6 bu. per acre), up from 3.176 MT in March.

USDA pegged total Brazilian corn production for 2016/17 at 93.50 million metric tons up 2 million tons from its March estimate. CONAB was more conservative, pegging total corn output at 91.47 million tons. The final crop production will depend heavily on the size of Brazil’s winter corn crop, which is developing well, but is still a ways from being harvested. Weather through May will impact winter-crop production. 

USDA also raised its estimate for Argentina’s 2016/17 corn and soybean production on Tuesday, pegging that country’s corn crop at 38.50 million metric tons, up 1.00 million tons from its previous estimate and up 32.7% from last year’s 29 million tons. USDA put Argentina’s soybean crop at 56.00 million tons, up 500,000 tons from its March estimate, but still down 800,000 tons from last year. 

USDA also raised its soybean production estimate for Paraguay to a record high 10.10 million tons from a previous forecast of 9.18 million tons.