BUENOS AIRES: Argentina's soon-to-be planted 2020/21 corn crop should reach about 6.3 million hectares, similar to the area of the recently harvested crop, thanks to attractive prices, local growers and analysts said.

Argentina is the world's No. 3 corn exporter, with output of about 50 million tonnes in the 2019/20 crop year, just 600,000 tonnes off its all-time record high season, according to the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange.

"Corn futures prices are good and so are profit margins. The attraction continues. So we expect to repeat the same planting area that we had last year," Alberto Morelli, president of the MAIZAR corn industry group told Reuters. Planting of the 2020/21 corn crop is expected to start in earnest next month.

Ricardo Baccarin, vice president of the consulting firm Panagricola, also forecasts that the area sown with corn for the new season will be around 6.3 million hectares.

"Whoever can plant corn early in the season has a good reward ahead of him," he explained.

On the local MatbaRofex futures market, the April 2021 contract for corn - the benchmark for the new season - closed on Monday at $137.5 per tonne. Meanwhile, corn for immediate delivery closed at $130 per tonne on the Rosario grains exchange.-Reuters