Rains are due to bring moisture this weekend to Sao Paulo, Brazil's main sugar cane and important coffee producing state, before pushing into the heart of the coffee and soyabean belts through next week, Reuters Weather Dashboard showed on Friday. Sao Paulo is due to see its most intense rains on Sunday with as much as 20 millimeters (0.7 inches) after which isolated showers are expected to decline through the week to turn dry from February 21 to the end of the month, the dashboard showed.
The moisture will help the state's developing sugar cane crop. Sao Paulo accounts for 60 percent of Brazil's cane production. Rains are next expected to move north by the middle of next week and push into coffee regions in the southern half of the main producer state of Minas Gerais. Showers are also expected to pick up in the main soyabean state of Mato Grosso about the same time, which could slow harvesting temporarily, forecasters said. "While rains will slow soya harvest and safrinha (winter) corn seeding in the north-west (of the main farm belt) next week, interruptions should remain minor," the US-based Commodities Weather Group said.