Brazil Soybean Harvesting Delays Seen in February; Crop to Reach 132 Million Tonnes -Analyst

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Harvesting delays in Brazilian soybean fields should continue throughout February after a drought pushed back plantings of the oilseeds, Thaís Italiani, market intelligence coordinator at Hedgepoint Global Markets, told a webinar on Thursday, January 28th.

The situation may delay deliveries of this year’s crop to global trading companies, as this is a season marked by strong pre-sales of Brazil’s most prized agricultural commodity.

Only up to 5 million tonnes of the new crop will be ready by end-January, according to calculations by another agribusiness consultancy, representing less than half of the available amount last season.

Italiani also predicted the pace of harvesting in Brazil would only normalize in March.

Brazilian farmers have pre-sold an estimated 60% of their soybean crop before harvesting, 20 percentage points above the historical average for the period, Italiani said, citing attractive prices.

Despite planting delays caused by a drought last year, the analyst estimates Brazil’s soybean crop at a record of 132 million tonnes in the 2020/2021 cycle.

Given good prices for the oilseeds this year, farmers in Brazil could also increase planted area next season by 2%-3%, Italiani said.