LatAm farmers to boost soybean output amid USChina trade row: analyst

Farmers across South America are expected to produce more soybeans in 2018/19, an industry analyst said on Wednesday, as they take advantage of a trade war that has curbed US exports to China, the world’s top buyer.

Producers in Brazil are investing more resources to increase the planted area in 2018/19 to a record 36.2 million hectares, Andre Debastiani, partner at Brazil Agroconsult, told an industry conference in Guangzhou, South China’s Guangdong Province.

Farmers will target production of 120 million tons, up from 119 million the year earlier, while Brazil’s soybean exports were estimated at 80.1 million tons in 2018/19, up from 78.5 million tons a year earlier, he said.

“A good harvest in the Southern Hemisphere should guarantee the supply of soybeans to China,” he said.

China imposed 25 percent tariffs on a list of US products including soybeans and grains on July 6, in response to similar measures levied on Chinese goods. This move curbed US soybean exports to China.

Brazil’s soy industry group Abiove last week raised its projection for the country’s soybean exports this year to 79 million tons from 77 million tons forecast in October.

The group also revised its estimate for the Brazilian 2017/18 crop to 120.5 million tons, from 119.5 million tons previously.

In Argentina, Debastiani said soybean production was likely to rebound to 54 million tons in 2018/19, up from a drought-hit crop of 35 million tons a year earlier.

The country was forecast to export 8.1 million tons of soybeans in 2018/19, up from 2.3 million tons the year before.

He estimated Paraguay would plant soybeans on 3.5 million hectares for output of 9.8 million tons in 2018/19.

World soybean production is expected to climb to an all-time high of 367.5 million tons in 2018/19, breaking the previous year’s record of 338.57 million tons.