Argentine farmers began to plant soya this week for the 2010/11 season, the Agriculture Ministry said in its latest weekly report on Friday. Argentina is the No 3 global exporter of soyabeans and the top supplier of soyameal and soyaoil.
Agriculture Minister Julian Dominguez has forecast production of the oilseed in the 2010/11 season at 52 million tonnes, slightly below the record 52.7 million tonnes harvested in the previous season. "(Soya) seeding has started in the Entre Rios province, we forecast that in the second half of October planting would have begun in all the areas of the region," the report said.
Entre Rios is the country's fifth-largest soya-producing province. Dominguez told Reuters in late August that he sees Argentine farmers planting 18 million hectares with soyabeans this season, slightly less than the 18.2 million hectares planted in the 2009/10 season. However, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange forecasts soyabean area this season at 18.7 million hectares. Argentina's wheat crop is in good shape thanks to plentiful showers in the past few weeks, the Agriculture Ministry said.
The South American country is one of the world's leading suppliers of wheat and attention is focused on its 2010/11 crop due to an export freeze in Russia, the No 3 global supplier of the grain. Argentine farmers produced 7.9 million tonnes of wheat in the 2009/10 season, the smallest crop in 30 years, due to a severe drought.
The Agriculture Ministry has forecast the 2010/11 wheat harvest at between 10 million and 11.2 million tonnes, but others see production even higher due to the favourable crop weather of recent weeks. "The rains we've seen in the past few weeks and the higher temperatures are helping the development of the crop in the central area," of the Buenos Aires province, the report said.
Buenos Aires province accounts for about half of Argentina's total wheat output. Regarding corn the Agriculture Ministry said that planting progressed smoothly in the country amid damper soil in top growing regions. By Thursday, farmers had seeded 36 percent of corn area, estimated by the government at 3.8 million hectares, up 15 percentage points from the previous week.
Argentina is the world's No 2 corn exporter after the United States and according to the government 2010/11 corn output should reach a record 26 million tonnes, up from 22.5 million tonnes in the prior crop year. The US Department of Agriculture on Friday increased its estimate for Argentina's 2010/11 corn output to 25 million tonnes from 21 million tonnes.