Recent rains in Argentina gave respite to thirsty soy crops in top farming region Buenos Aires, but beans in Cordoba province still desperately need heavy rainfall, the government said on Friday. Argentina is the world's No 3 exporter of soybeans and the top supplier of soyoil and soymeal, but the lack of rain in the past few weeks has prompted analysts to lower their forecasts for the country's 2010/11 harvest.
A government official recently said the country's soy output this season will likely be less than 50 million tonnes, below a previous forecast of 52 million tonnes. Tres Arroyos is in the southern part of Buenos Aires, the top soy growing province.
Crops in the areas that saw rain were revitalised, but the state of those that were left out "is complicated, (they) are not flowering, and some are blotched," the report said, referring to plots in Cordoba, the No 2 soy-growing region. By Thursday, farmers had planted 96 percent of an estimated soy area of 18.7 million hectares (46.2 million acres), up 2 percentage points from the previous week but lagging last season's pace by 2 points. Argentina produced a record 55 million tonnes of soybeans last year.
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