MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil estimates record soybean crop of 130,5 million tons in 2021; wheat imports could climb to 7,3 million tons

For this year, Abiove revised the projection of Brazil’s soybean crop to 125.5 million tons, with exports expected to reach 80 million tons

Brazilian soybean production is expected to increase some five million tons in the 2020/21 harvest to a record 130,5 million tons, according to Daniel Amaral, chief economist of the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (Abiove). Based on this crop oilseed exports could reach 80 million tons in 2021, while domestic crushing could reach a new annual record of 45 million tons.

However wheat imports in 2020 could climb to 7,3 million tons with Argentina and the US as the main suppliers, points out the National Supply Company, Conab..

For this year, Abiove revised the projection of Brazil’s soybean crop to 125.5 million tons. According to this analysis, soybean exports in 2020 are expected to reach 80 million tons, compared to 79.5 million tons projected in July. It also slightly raised the forecast for soybean processing in Brazil this year, to 44.6 million tons, versus 44.5 million in the previous projection.

In related news US Department of Agriculture (USDA) records show that Brazil´s imports of red winter wheat from the US in 2020 is already at 419,800 tons. In the last week alone, 63,500 tons of the cereal were imported. The volume is Brazil’s second-largest wheat acquisition from the US in 2020, just below the import of 69,000 tons in late April.

Conab estimates that Brazil will import a record 7.3 million tons of wheat this year from all sources, given the steady consumption of the cereal by products such as bread and pasta, amid the pandemic of coronavirus.

Brazil has already imported around 3.5 million tons of wheat in the first half, up 150,000 tons on 2019 volumes, with Argentina as the main source, supplying 3.12 million tons, compared to 2.96 million tons in the first half of last year. The United States appears in second, with 172,000 tons (versus 72,000 tons in the first half of 2019), according to import data from the Brazilian government.

Other suppliers in the semester included Paraguay and Uruguay, with 97,000 and 80,000 tons, respectively. Russia should also appear as an exporter to Brazil this year, taking advantage of the fact that Brasilia set an additional quota of 450,000 tons in June to import wheat from outside Mercosur without a Common External Tariff (TEC) until November, which increased the annual fee-free volume to 1.2 million tons