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Saturday, February 8, 2025
·¬ÇÑÖ±²¥Ag NewsSlow Soybean Harvest Pace, Potential Quality Issues and More in Brazil

Slow Soybean Harvest Pace, Potential Quality Issues and More in Brazil

(NASHVILLE, TN) — As early soybean harvest gets underway in Brazil, there has been plenty of chatter amongst traders and on social media about a slow pace of harvest and potential quality concerns due to continued rains in central and northern areas.

Dr. Michael Cordonnier of Soybean and Corn Advisor says that many areas of the country are behind on soy harvest and that early yields, although good, have not been as good as some people thought they would be. “Brazil in general, as of last Friday, soybeans were 3.9% harvested compared to 10.8% last year,” says Dr. Cordonnier.And Mato Grosso, the big state, is quite behind.ÌýThey’re 4.3% harvested compared to 21.5% last year.ÌýNow, the only state that’s ahead of average is Paraná, and they’re 11.2% harvested compared to 18 last year. It’s been very wet in central Brazil for about the last month and a half.ÌýA lot of overcast skies, lack of sunshine.”

Dr. Cordonnier added that “Now, the early yields, they’re good, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not quite up to what people thought they would be.ÌýThe crop just looked fantastic, tall, green, lush, but it didn’t quite yield what they thought, and everybody’s attributing that to a lack of sunshine.”

He says that farmers are afraid of a return of heavy rains for a prolonged period time as that would be “quite bad news.” Dr. Cordonnier says that there have not been many quality concerns as of yet, but more heavy rains could cause issues with quality and logistics.

“What everybody’s concerned about is, as the beans start to mature, then if you get a long period of weather, a week long of constant rain, there could be quality issues,” according to Dr. Cordonnier. “Has not happened yet, but it certainly is a possibility, and there’s going to be logistical issues. I can just see it coming.ÌýFarmers want to get their beans as quick as they can.ÌýThey’re not going to wait for 13%, 14% moisture out there in the field for fear of a prolonged period of rain coming back in.”

He adds that a lack of on-farm storage in Brazil could create some problems. “So they’re going to get those beans at 18%, 20% moisture, and they need to be dried, and here’s the problem.ÌýOnly 15% of the storage in Brazil is on-farm.ÌýSo 85% of the beans have to go to a grain elevator or the co-op, and those grain elevators don’t have the drying capacity to dry every load of soybeans coming in. Now, if you’re a farmer and you don’t have on-farm storage, your combine dumps into a truck.ÌýThe truck heads to the grain elevator.ÌýNow, they don’t have enough drying capacity.”

Dr. Cordonnier continues saying “He may be waiting in line two or three days to unload, and you as the farmer, you can’t keep harvesting until the truck returns or a truck comes back.ÌýSo there’s going to be some issues, I think, logistically getting all these beans dried because they’re going to be harvested at a high moisture.ÌýI can just see it coming.”

Yields in southern Brazil, like the state ofÌýParaná, have been more on the disappointing side due to dry weather in that state according to Dr. Cordonnier. He also adds that while the situation in Argentina is not catastrophic due to dry weather, he expects yields for that country to be disappointing. Dr. Cordonnier says that corn and soybean ratings in Argentina were 30% and 22% good to excellent as of last week.

Also, in terms of phytosanitary concerns with soybean shipments from Brazil to China, Dr. Cordonnier says that this is a minor deal. “That thing with China, it was from individual locations in five different companies.ÌýSo it wasn’t that five companies were prohibited.ÌýIt was just like five individual grain elevators were prohibited,” says Dr. Cordonnier. “They never actually said what the problem was, and some people said it was treated soybeans that got put into the regular hold of the ship, or maybe some insects.ÌýThis is a minor deal.ÌýI don’t see this having much long-term problems at all. It’ll be resolved quite easily and quite quickly.”

imports from those five locations will last two months, according to a top Brazilian agriculture official.

You can hear the full conversation with Dr. Michael Cordonnier on this past Tuesday’s episode of Agriculture of America (AOA) via the podcast link below. The interview starts at the 34 minute mark of the podcast.

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