Argentine wheat harvest may fall

Argentina's wheat output could fall by 25 percent this season due to a prolonged drought that is gradually reducing potential yields, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange said in a report on Friday. Argentina, the world's No 4 wheat supplier last year, gathered 16 million tonnes of the grain in the 2007/08 crop year.
But dry conditions this season have forced many farmers to abandon their sowing plans and have badly affected crop development. "The tentative estimate of the current situation points to a decline in average nation-wide yields of between 10 percent and 15 percent from a year ago," the exchange said. "Reductions to yields and harvestable area are gradually deepening," it said, adding that frosts in the marginal northern provinces of Salta and Tucuman had also hit wheat.