MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil’s command of soy markets tested by record crops and Argentina  

Conab believes a record soybean harvest and strong Chinese demand are expected to drive growth of the country’s soybean and by-product exports in the 2024/25 season

Despite a record grains and oil seeds harvest, Brazil’s soybean trading has slowed significantly, because of the mismatch between buyers’ prices and suppliers’ expectations, points out Globo Rural, an agribusiness site.

 According to researchers from Cepea (Center for Advanced Studies on Applied Economics), buyers are cautious in light of falling international prices and lower export premiums in Brazil, reducing export parity. This cautious environment is further influenced by a record domestic supply and increasing availability from Argentina.

On the other hand, traders anyhow are feeling optimistic, pointing to Brazil’s strong export performance in April and anticipating higher international demand in the coming months.

In April, Brazil exported 15.27 million tons of soybeans—up 4.2% from March and 4.2% higher than the same month in 2024, according to data from Secex. This figure represents the third-largest monthly soybean export volume in the country’s history, behind only June 2023 (15.58 million tons) and April 2021 (16.11 million tons). But concern is ever present, shipments to China—the top buyer—fell by 3% between March and April.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s National Supply Company (Conab), a record soybean harvest and strong Chinese demand are expected to drive growth of the country’s soybean and by-product exports in the 2024/25 season. Grain exports are projected to increase by 7.2%, reaching 105.9 million tons.

Exports of soybean meal and oil are also expected to grow by 2.2% each, totaling 23.6 million tons and 1.4 million tons, respectively.

Despite this growth, the record harvest — estimated at 168.3 million tons — will allow soybean stocks to more than triple, reaching 2.9 million tons by the end of the 2024/25 season, compared to 758.2 thousand tons in 2023/24.