Darren Cooper, senior economist at International Grains Council, expects the soybean harvest in Argentina to reach 38 million tonnes. Hot and dry weather resulted in a total of six consecutive declining crop estimates. Coming from 56 million tonnes, the crop estimate was reduced in stages by a total of 18 million tonnes to 38 million tonnes. Cooper said in the context of the UN Commodities Conference. On Thursday, the IGC will publish its monthly report, which already takes this estimate into account. Argentina's Ministry of Agriculture estimates last week at 37.6 million tonnes.
Last month, the IGC released its latest report, which estimated a soybean harvest of 43 million tonnes. The US Department of Agriculture's latest forecast was 40 million tonnes.
Interestingly, in Brazil, things are going the other way, according to Cooper. There is a record soybean harvest expected. Last month, the soybean harvest estimate for 2017/18 was 114 million tonnes. This is marginally less than the 114.1 million tonnes harvested last year.However, the latest estimate from the US Department of Agriculture in the WASDE report of April 10 was already 115 million tons.
For 2018/19, a record soybean crop area is expected. Larger acreage is expected for South America, China and Canada and a smaller adjustment in the United States.
For wheat, Cooper expects to expand its acreage by 2% for 2018/19, notably supported by the expansion of summer wheat acreage in the United States.
The global corn harvest 2018/19 is estimated by the IGC at 1.052 billion tons, which is less than the expected consumption and would lead to the reduction of global stocks.
