Brazilian farmers will probably stop planting a second, or safrinha soybean crop because of very poor output according to Oil World. Farmers in Brazil’s top soybean producing state of Mato Gosso originally planned to plant up to 1 million hectares of second crop soybeans, however only approximately half of that was sown. Of the sown acreage, growers only harvested 300,000 hectares. Brazilian farmers have planted second crop soybeans for a few years, but this was the first year that a significant expansion of acreage was planned, and failed, leading Thomas Mielke of Oil World to state that this will probably be the last season with a safrinha soybean crop. Farmers plant the yearly main soybean crop in September for harvest between the following January through April, but diseases such as Asian rust fungus have been restricting yield growth over the past twelve years. Planted acreage for the next soybean crop is estimated to increase by between 1 – 1.5 million hectares because of its profitability when compared to corn.
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