SAO PAULO: Brazil’s 2023/24 soybean planting had reached 74% of the expected area as of Thursday, agribusiness consultancy AgRural said on Monday, making it the slowest progress for the period in eight years as the country grapples with bad weather.

Sowing was up 6 percentage points from the previous week but continued to lag far behind last year’s levels, when 87% of the areas had been planted at the same time, and is now the slowest since 2015/16.

AgRural said in a statement that progress last week was capped by excessive humidity in Brazil’s southernmost state Rio Grande do Sul, even as some needed rainfall was registered in center-northern states. The South American country, the world’s largest soybean producer and exporter, has seen farmers struggle with low humidity and high temperatures in center-northern areas while southern states face excessive rains.