Argentine Planting Progress/Intentions

Everything now seems to be gearing up for massive soybean plantings in Argentina this season.

The Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange have cut their estimate for corn area to 1.875 million ha., that's around 600,000 ha or 24% down on last year. Although some rain has fallen in Argentina this past week, plantings have got off to a slow start at just 3.5% complete, they say.

They also say that wheat planting is finished at 2.8 million hectares, more than 40% down on last season's 4.7 million ha.

Sunflower plantings will fall more modestly by around 100,000 ha they say to 2.1 million ha., with 7.8% of the crop in the ground so far.

If all this extra land switches into soybean production then that gives us an additional 2.6 million ha of beans.

With plantings last year at 16.0 million ha, that potentially gives us 18.6 million ha of soybeans this year.

A return to 'normal' yields as in 2007/08 would potentially give us production of something like 51.15 MMT in 2010, a bumper yield as in 2006/07 would push that up to 55.8 MMT. Either one would be a record.