IARN — Brazilian second crop corn farmers are bracing for potential yield losses due to recent pockets of dry and hot weather.
In this week’s South American weather and crop update on the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network, Allendale commodity broker Greg McBride says safrinha corn producers in Brazil had to deal with planting windows outside of their normal range. Now that the crop is fully in the ground, dryness is impacting a critical crop development stage.
“That’s going to be an issue as we move forward as they do tend to get dryer as they go into the month of May,” McBride said. “Being that they are late and now that they are in a crucial crop development time frame over the next month to month and a half, this could put some stress and maybe even thoughts of lower production into that corn crop.”
On the soybean front, McBride says the Brazilian harvest is nearly finished.
“We’re well over 85 percent,” he said. “Anytime you get that close to 90 percent we pretty well lock it in that it’s done. It will become something that we go to the rear view on that one and will start to look ahead towards development of this safrinha crop and then we’ll start to look for Argentina as their harvest kicks up over the next month or so.”
Another development this week in Brazil is the country has announced a volume reduction of biodiesel blended with diesel sold at the pump. Reports say that for the May-June period, the blend will drop from 13% to 10%.
“They do have a very strong demand for soybeans right now,” McBride said. “Pushing off that demand similar to the way we would slow down our own crush here in the United States. That’s another reason why they are backing off of that, they have that strong of a demand for soybeans. They want to make sure that export demand is met.”
McBride adds Brazil’s biodiesel production outlook is now cloudy.
“At this point, we know that they do have a big crop out there,” he said. “They may end up going back to increasing that blend a little bit later on, but as of right now, this is prime time for them to be shipping soybeans that have just come out of the fields. They are putting all of their eggs into that basket and pushing that agenda forward.”
Brazil saw a 9% increase in biodiesel production in 2020, despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.
Weather radar by Accuweather
