Argentina's corn crop is expected to fall to 20.35 million tonnes this season due to dry conditions, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange said on Thursday in its first estimate of 2010/11 production. Rains this week brought relief to crops in some parts of the South American country, the world's No 2 corn supplier, but many important growing areas were still suffering parched soils, the exchange said in a report.
Argentina produced a record 23.2 million tonnes of corn last year due to almost ideal weather conditions. This season, the La Nina weather condition has reduced rainfall dramatically and global corn prices have rallied on supply fears. "The result of the storms was favourable in areas that account for relatively little corn ... bringing only partial relief to more important growing areas," the report said, adding that farmers had sown 89.1 percent of estimated area.
More rains were expected in the next few days, it added. Despite the persistent dryness in many central soya-farming areas, the grains exchange held its 2010/11 soya area estimate at 18.5 million hectares. It said this week's rainfall would help speed sowing and germination of young crops, but that they had not been heavy enough to improve the outlook of plants in the country's main soya belt. Argentina is the world's No 3 soya exporter and growing concerns about the dry conditions have led many private crop analysts to start trimming their production estimates. The US Department of Agriculture forecasts output of 52 million tonnes, but other analysts said they expected production to sink below 50 million tonnes.
Argentine growers gathered a record soya crop of 52.7 million tonnes last season, according to the Agriculture Ministry. Wheat crops have escaped the impact of La Nina and the exchange held its production outlook at 14.5 million tonnes due to bumper yields.
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