MarketsFarm — As farmers in Brazil plant more wheat this year, their counterparts in Argentina are cutting back on the amount of acres they plan to sow — although Argentina will still grow a great deal more wheat than Brazil.
Dr. Michael Cordonnier of Soybean and Corn Advisor Inc. at Hinsdale, Ill. said one reason is that a great amount of progress has been made on developing hybrid wheat that’s more suitable to Brazil. Another reason he noted is excellent wheat prices.
“They are trying to recoup some of the losses in the last couple of years. The soybeans haven’t been very good and some first crops of corn haven’t very good either,” he said.
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CONAB, Brazil’s agriculture department, pegged the 2022-23 wheat crop at nine million tonnes off of 7.1 million planted acres. That’s the second most wheat acres on record, surpassed only by the 8.1 million seeded in 1990. Despite the large crop for Brazil, it’s still expected to import 6.5 million tonnes of wheat from Argentina.
While rainfall in key wheat-growing areas of Brazil has been beneficial to the wheat, Cordonnier said there has been too much rain in Rio Grande do Sul in the country’s south. The expert on South American crops noted wheat seeding in the state most often wraps up by the end of June, but halfway through July the pace was at 88 per cent complete. That’s led some farmers in the state to give up on planting wheat and seed soybeans instead.
On the plus side, Cordonnier said any notion of a fertilizer shortage in Brazil has been nixed. Besides frontloading, the country signed a deal with Russia to get around international sanctions against it.
As for Argentina, Cordonnier pointed to dry conditions as to why there will be less wheat planted in the country in 2022-23. He said the Rosario Grain Exchange projected production to come in at 17.7 million tonnes, down from its previous call of 18.5 million. In addition, Rosario placed planted wheat acres at 14.5 million, while the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange forecast 15.3 million.
“It’s going to be a disappointing wheat crop in Argentina,” Cordonnier said, noting germination was not very good.
— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.
