Mato Grosso safrinha corn planting, soybean harvest remain slow: IMEA

Last week, Mato Grosso’s soybean harvest reached just under 5% of the projected area, with the country’s safrinha corn planting campaign now covering just over 2% of the total area, the state’s agricultural statistics agency IMEA said late Monday.

For comparison, by the same point last year close to 27% of the total soybean area had been harvested with 22% of the safrinha crop area planted.

Recent heavy rains in the state have delayed the progress of the soybean harvest, limiting the progress of safrinha planting on the same land.

These results – in Brazil’s largest producing state – are likely to further highlight concerns of a delay to both soybean exports and Brazil’s key corn export campaign from July onwards.

Official Brazilian export data showed that the country exported just 50,000 mt of soybeans in January, the lowest monthly volume since January 2014.

Elsewhere, despite the slow pace to the rate of corn planting the agency still expects a 5% growth in planted area to 5.69 million ha, with production set to reach 36.29 million mt in the state.

And for soybeans, the institute has maintained its previous yield predictions despite adverse weather with production set to reach 35.48 million mt, up 0.24% on the previous campaign.