Brazil's soya crop to be disrupted by January rains

Soya farmers in Brazil are concerned that heavy rains in January could disrupt the start of harvesting of the 2016-2017 crop, forecast at a record 100 million tonnes, growers and industry experts said on Friday.
Due to early planting this year, much of the soya crop in the world's largest exporter will be ready from next month. January usually sees intense heavy rainfall, especially in the Centre-West region that accounts for nearly half of Brazil's soya output.
Heavy rains could not only worsen the quality of the crop, meaning lower prices for farmers, but complicate transportation from rural areas and exacerbate other logistical bottlenecks, experts say.
The government's crop supply agency Conab forecast this month that the 2016/2017 soya harvest would reach a record 102.45 million tonnes, up 7 percent from the previous season.
"The harvest is ready in Mato Grosso, but there will be a lot of pressure on machines and equipment in the next 30 days to get the soya out of the fields because the rains are coming," said Fernando Muraro of agro-consultants AgRural.
Somar Meterologia said on Friday that heavy rains in the south of Brazil would move toward the Centre-West region in the coming days, including Mato Grosso state, which accounts for around 30 percent of Brazil's soya crop.
Early planting means that Mato Grosso could harvest more than 7 million tonnes of soya in January, versus just 2 million in the same month last year, AgRural said.
Harvests in Mato Grosso were hard hit by January rains in 2009/2010 and 2011/2012, Muraro said. There were expectations that the harvest in Mato Grosso might have started as soon as this month.
However, Jose Guarino Fernandes, vice president of the state's association of soya producers, Aprosoja, said the rains had already been heavy in the middle and the end of the month in the western part of the state.
The head of the farmers association in the nearby town of Campo Novo do Parecis, Giovana Velke, said intense rainfall there had also delayed the start of harvesting.