by PressOilseeds market in Argentina: an overview of the situation for the 2020/2021 season
How the oilseeds market is developing in Argentina
The oilseeds market in Argentina has only been developing for about 50 years, but during that time it has achieved good success. For example, in the 1970s almost all agricultural land in the country was cultivated with grains — wheat, corn and barley. And by 2010, oilseeds accounted for 70% of the available land. In 2015, the strategy changed, and the focus shifted to increasing the volume of grain, but oilseeds are still an important segment for Argentina’s exports. The main crop in this case is soybeans, with 18 million hectares of land.
Thanks to last year’s rains in the country during the sowing season for soybeans, we can expect a minimum number of sprouts. In general, experts promise favorable conditions for the harvest of early oilseeds. However, meteorologists are predicting drought in large parts of Argentina, which should also be taken into account when analyzing the harvest. This year, farmers will be extremely dependent on climatic conditions and rains, which will give the necessary moisture to grow quality products. For 2021, experts have reduced the forecast for soybean production by 1 million tons, its volume is 50 million tons. Sunflower is planned to receive about 2.9 million tons. Reduced expectations had to because of dry weather, which was observed last season. As for peanuts, the forecast for it increased to 1.35 million tons, which is primarily due to the extensive estates for the cultivation of culture.
In the 2020/2021 season, soybean was planted on 17.5 million hectares. Due to weather conditions, farmers sowed the crop later than usual. They were waiting for the rains, which did not fall in the right amount, which had a negative impact on the germination of legumes. In addition, the soybeans that were sown later produced lower yields than the early sown soybeans. In Argentina, there are four key regions for the cultivation of oilseeds, and of these, only Santa Fe received the right amount of rainfall during the maturation of the beans. It should be noted that the 2020/2021 season shows less rain than was observed in 2019/2020. The worst results are recorded in the provinces of Cordoba, Entre Ríos and Buenos Aires. In the latter region, the soybean planting plan was only 87.5% complete. Sowing was completed in Cordoba and Santa Fe.
Experts estimate that this season’s bean exports will be about 7 million metric tons, 1 million less than the September 2020 report on oilseeds.