Argentina's Agriculture Ministry on Thursday cut its estimate for 2012/13 wheat production by 5 percent to 10.5 million tonnes, which is still higher than leading private forecasts but reflects damage caused by wet weather. Argentina is a major world supplier of wheat, soya and corn. Its vast Pampas farm belt has been hit by unusually heavy rains this season that have swamped fields, damaging crop yields and delaying plantings.
The government had previously estimated wheat output at 11.1 million tonnes. "This means lower-than-expected yields and grains quality, at least in (some) areas," the report stated. The soggy conditions have also delayed the sowing of soyabeans and corn, but the government only slightly trimmed its corn sowing forecast and held its soya area estimate steady at 19.35 million hectares.
Corn plantings are now seen at 4.6 million hectares compared with November's 4.7 million hectares, according to the government. The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange expects Argentine farmers to harvest 9.8 million tonnes of wheat while the Rosario exchange sees the crop coming in at 9.5 million tonnes.
Growers have brought in 58.4 percent of the wheat from harvestable lands, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange said in its weekly crop report on Thursday. That marked a healthy advance of 16 percentage points from a week earlier, although harvest progress still lags last year's pace by 6.6 points. Yields are getting better as harvesting moves into areas that were less severely affected by flooding and fungal outbreaks. "The average yield continues to improve as the harvest advances and at the moment has risen to 2.28 tonnes per hectare," the grains exchange said.
Farmers have also been making up for lost time by planting soyabeans with shorter growth cycles. By Thursday, they had seeded 73.6 percent of the estimated soya area of 19.7 million hectares, progressing 10.3 points from a week earlier and trailing the 2011/12 campaign's tempo by just 2 points. Many growers are speeding ahead with later-planted soyabeans and the exchange said that could help them compensate for the impact of flooding earlier in the season.
Corn plantings are still lagging last season's pace by 7.6 percentage points, with overall progress reaching 67 percent of the estimated commercial-use sowing area of 3.4 million hectares. "Rainfall over the last week has complicated the planting of later-seeded corn in the central crop belt and along the eastern fringes," the exchange said. Neither the grains exchange nor the Argentine government has yet forecast soya and corn production this season. The US Department of Agriculture expects Argentina to harvest 55 million tonnes of 2012/13 soyabeans and 27.5 million tonnes of corn. It sees wheat production at 11.5 million tonnes.
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