February 13, 2015

Brazil’s safinha corn hectarage will fall for the first time in seven years, bringing down the country’s overall second crop production by 126,000 tons to 48.3 million tons, according to the country’s crop bureau, Conab. The country will see a decline of 230,000 hectares year on year to 8.98 million hectares this year. Previously Conab had forecasted an equal planting to last year’s record planting of 9.21 million hectares. This reduction in planting is the result of carry-over effects of delays in soybean planting, which in turn caused a delayed harvest, and therefore a smaller available window of time for planting safrinha corn.

Looking at the wider production picture, Brazil’s overall corm output is forecast by Conab to be 78.4 million tons, well above the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimate published in its recent World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report of 75 million tons.

And examining Brazil’s soybean crop, Conab notes that severe dryness in the states of Mato Grosso and Goais between mid-November and mid-January has caused a ‘strong impact’ on the crop’s development. These conditions have led Conab to reduce its estimate for Brazil’s soybean harvest by 1.34 million tons to 94.58 million tons, closely set to the USDA’s recent forecast of 94.5 million tons.

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