Brazil again lowers its 2022 crop forecast slightly, but it will still be a recod harvest

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil, one of the world’s largest food producers, has lowered its forecast for the 2022 grain harvest by 1% to 258.9 million tons, despite the decline will still be a record, the National Statistics Institute said Thursday.

The 2022 crop forecast will be 2.3% higher than in 2021, when 253.2 million tons were harvested, in a year when the Brazilian countryside was affected by various weather imbalances.

Despite the projected decline in 2022, Brazil will surpass the record set in 2020, when 255.4 million tons were produced, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

According to official estimates, rice, corn, and soybeans account for 92.7% of potential production and 87.7% of cultivated area.

The country’s primary commodity production of soybeans is expected to fall 13.9% year on year due to the drought that has affected summer crops in the Mid-South region. In comparison, rice production is expected to decline by 8%.

On the other hand, the corn crop is expected to increase by 27.4% in 2021 after the poor result.

The agricultural sector, one of the engines of Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America, declined by 0.2% in 2021 compared to 2020 due to poor weather conditions in the country’s main producing states.