Argentina’s main growing regions face the driest conditions in about thirty years. The scenario raises fears of a new “great drought” and delays planting corn in the world’s third-largest grain exporter.
The corn planting season is beginning in the vast Pampas plains of the South American country after about four months of almost no rain. Forecasters predict further dry weather with sparse rainfall.
Argentina is the world’s leading exporter of processed soybean oil and meal and a major producer of corn, wheat, and barley.
“This is one of the most complex situations we have seen in recent decades. We must say that it is the worst growing scenario for corn in the last twenty-seven years,” Cristian Russo, senior agronomist at the Grain Exchange in Rosario, told Reuters.
Russo added that the exchange is likely to lower its estimate for 2022/23 corn plantings in its monthly report, which will be released next week. It currently projects an acreage of 8.2 million hectares.
Germán Heinzenknecht, a meteorologist with the Applied Climatology Advisor, pointed to cities such as Pergamino in Buenos Aires province, which received only six millimeters of rain in the southern winter from June to August, the least since 1933.
“It’s serious. There are problems everywhere,” Heinzenknecht said, adding that there is a risk of a repeat of the “great drought” of 2008-09 that devastated crops. “Those who want to plant now simply can’t”.
With information from Latina Press
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