Argentine President Alberto Fernández signed a decree whereby export taxes on soy, wheat, corn and beef go up. The decree became available Saturday as it appeared in the Official Gazette and is effective immediately.
Argentine farmers are finishing this year's wheat sowing, helped by moist soils and cold weather that is prolonging the vegetative stage of crops, raising hopes of high yields and a record harvest, growers and analysts said on Wednesday. Cold Southern Hemisphere winter weather allows seedlings to grow more sprigs per plant. Harvesting starts in November.
Argentine farmers are expected to harvest at least 15 million tons of wheat in the 2016/17 crop year versus 11.3 million in the previous season, Agriculture Minister Ricardo Buryaile said last week. Wheat planting in Argentina expanded dramatically when President Mauricio Macri eliminated export taxes soon after his December inauguration.
Argentina’s wheat production is estimated at 14.4 million tons in 2016-17 and total exports are estimated at 8.03 million tons, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Services (FAS) said in its latest report. The main market is expected to be Brazil, the historic, natural market for Argentine wheat and flour.
Argentina is planting an additional one million of hectares with wheat this austral winter, taking the total area to 5.3 million hectares, spurred by the end of export duties and quotas, and a floating exchange rate, according to the Agro/Industry ministry in Buenos Aires.
Domestic supplies of corn and soybeans will be tighter than expected in the United States as problems with crops in Brazil and Argentina have raised demand for U.S. supplies from overseas buyers, the U.S. Agriculture Department. In its latest monthly supply and demand report, the government cut its new-crop and old-crop ending stocks outlooks for both corn and soybeans by more than analysts had forecast.
Argentine wheat exports more than doubled in the first quarter, government data showed, as farmers rushed to sell stockpiles ahead of an expected jump in plantings spurred by the open-market policies of new President Mauricio Macri. The surge in Argentine supply is hitting an oversaturated world market and putting downward pressure on wheat prices already near their lowest levels in six years.