Brazil, No 2 to the United States as a soybean producer, will reap a record 95.5 million tonnes of the oilseed, forecasts USDA – 10 percent than its previous crop. The larger harvest is due to a 5 percent increase in harvested area and a 5 percent increase in yield from last season. “The increase in estimated yield is attributed to beneficial weather in Brazil’s largest soybean areas – Mato Grosso and Parana. These two states account for 44 percent of Brazil’s soybean area,” said USDA’s World Agricultural Production report. Soybean farmers typically plant early-maturing varieties so they can plant a second crop, such as cotton, corn, sunflower and sorghum, said USDA. “Soybean harvest has begun for the earliest planted soybeans but the bulk of the harvest will occur in February.”
Brazil’s new agriculture minister, Katia Abreu, is “Brazil’s major champion of the so-called ‘Arco Norte’ plan” to build infrastructure to ship more soybeans more the country’s northern ports, which are closer to the Panama Canal and sea routes to China, says columnist James Thompson at Farm Futures. At present, most ag exports are loaded in southern Brazil ports.