Esteban Fuentes
02/28/2021 20:02
Clarín.com
Rural
Updated 02/28/2021 20:02
Producers are holding
8.4 million tons of SOJ
to
from last season.
And despite the good prices of the crop that have been occurring in the international market, they
prefer to keep the grains because of the dollar exchange gap
and because they use it as a "currency" of exchange.
So far, the farmers have shed
40.6 million tons of soybeans from the 49 million tons
that were produced in 2020, according to the latest official data updated to February 27.
Of this total, 32 million tons were bought by the industry to process the grain and then export it as a by-product (flour and oil), while the exporters were left with 8.6 million tons to send abroad as beans.
In this way,
the producers have in their possession 8.4 million tons of the crop, which represents about 4.7 billion dollars
, taking into account Friday's quotation of the FOB Value of the bean (the value of the merchandise placed in the port ) which was $ 562 per ton, a figure that
will ease the government's bills
once the foreign exchange comes in.
The commercialization rhythm of soybeans
continues to be
similar to what happened in the 2018/19 cycle
despite the high value of the bean in the Chicago market (the world's reference market) where this Friday closed the day with 516 dollars, a
60 % more than what was listed on the same date in February 2020.
At this point in 2019, the farmers had sold 46 million tons of the 55 million tons of soy that had been harvested.
In other words, they needed to sell 17%, a
similar figure to what is happening today
.
The main reason why producers do not want to sell their grains, despite the good price, is mainly due to the
exchange rate gap
.
At today's prices, the
soybean dollar
, as it is called the dollar that each producer receives after the 33% discount on the withholdings paid by the official dollar crop, is
60 pesos
, very far from the
145 pesos
that the
dollar
quotes.
blue
or the
140 pesos
of
the MEP dollar
.
"In a situation where the producer could buy dollars without limits, as in previous years, there
would be a greater quantity of sales
," explained
David Miazzo
, economist at the Fundación Agropecuaria para el Desarrollo de Argentina (FADA).
In this sense, some producers, who have financial
backing
,
sell soybeans as they need to buy inputs
for the next season and others directly use it as "currency", since more and more agricultural companies have joined the sale of goods with the
grain swap plan
, especially
automotive companies
,
agricultural machinery
brands
and
agricultural input
companies
.
"If you do not need the money from soybeans, the producers
do not sell it
. They only do it if it arrives without liquidity and they sell when they must face the payment of inputs for the next campaign, which is from March onwards," Miazzo said.
Meanwhile, producers also save
7 million tons of corn,
continuing with the data from the Ministry of Agriculture
,
valued at almost
1.7 billion dollars
(the Fob Value on Friday was 262 dollars).
Of the 51 million tons that were produced in 2020, 38.8 million tons were purchased by export and 5.1 million by industry.
Thus, between soybeans and corn, the two main crops in Argentina,
6.4 billion dollars
from last season
remain unmarketed,
which will surely be liquidated in the coming days to pay for the purchase of inputs for the wheat campaign that is coming since As happens every year,
both soybeans and corn end up being sold in their entirety
.
This is what premium soybeans look like near Junín, in the north of Buenos Aires.
With regard to the new soybean campaign that begins with the harvest at the end of March, alarms were raised due to
the deterioration of the crop in the last 15 days due to the lack of rain and high temperatures.
For this reason, the Rosario Stock Exchange warned that the regular and bad condition of the first crop has risen to 30% and many good tables may collapse.
In February it only rained 23% of the historical rate and there are no favorable forecasts for the next few days.
The monthly average for the last 30 years in the main agricultural area is 100 to 120 millimeters this month.
But to date, only the accumulated amount reached 25 millimeters
, being the west of Cordoba and the northwest of Buenos Aires the most benefited areas.
Faced with this adverse situation, in principle, first-class soybeans can lower the yield
from 200 to 1000 kilos per hectare
, which
would cause total soy production to fall
, which was recently estimated at
49 million tons.
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