RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Argentina’s farmers have sold 21.8 million tons of newly harvested 2020/21 season soy after deals closed last week for 853,500 tons, the Agriculture Ministry said Wednesday, in a report with information updated through June 9.
The pace of Argentina’s soy sales is slower than last year, when by this time into the crop harvest 25.3 million tons of the oilseed had been sold, according to official data.
The projection for Argentina’s 2020/21 soybean crop is 43.5 million tons, according to the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange, compared with an estimated 49 million tons for the 2019/20 cycle.
The country is the largest exporter of soybean meal used for livestock feed and needs export dollars to replenish foreign currency reserves in the Central Bank amid tensions over a 3-year recession exacerbated by high inflation and the coronavirus pandemic.
Argentine producers are also harvesting corn from the 2020/21 season. The Ministry said in a report that 30.2 million tons of this season’s corn crop has been sold so far, up 3 million tons from the same period in the last cycle.