A second week of rains in central and southern parts of Argentina's farming belt should help maturing soya crops after a dry spell late last month, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange said on Wednesday. Argentina, the world's third-biggest soya exporter, had dry weather earlier this season, but heavy rains from mid-January onward brightened the outlook for the oilseed.
Parched conditions returned in late February, but the country has now seen two consecutive weeks of rain. "There were rains in most of the center and south of the agricultural belt. However, the degree of relief will depend on the amount of water accumulated in the different regions, given that it could continue raining unevenly," the exchange said in its weekly crop report.
The exchange kept its forecast for 2010/11 soya output at 48.8 million tonnes, slightly below the 50 million tonnes estimated by the Agriculture Ministry earlier this week.
Argentina is also a leading global corn supplier, and the country's Agriculture Ministry estimates corn production at 20.8 million tonnes. The exchange held its estimate steady at 19.5 million tonnes. By Wednesday, farmers had harvested 18 percent of the 3.15 million hectares planted with commercial-use corn, up 9.8 percentage points from the previous week but lagging last season's pace by a hefty 15.4 points.
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